Artist: Mestni postopači
Release: 2009
Length: 30.14
Rating: 2.5/5
Dobro došlo is the debut from a freshly baked crew of blues-rock troubadours, or rather Mestni postopači, whose main driving force is a guy named Dejan Došlo. He’s a former member of the musical collective Leteči potepuhi, and after that lineup fell apart he rounded up four seriously great musicians, tidied them up nicely and hitched them to the Mestni postopači wagon. Dobro došlo is hard proof of the band’s big talent, as well as of the fact that old habits die hard. So with Mestni postopači too, it often feels like they’re just carefully tending the legacy of their far more famous predecessors.
In many ways Dobro došlo is actually a textbook Slovenian product, one that ironically tries to make a name for itself by refusing to fit in with the groupthink of the local music scene. From the first second to the last, the album is stuffed with the daftness of homegrown Slovenian humor, with provincialism shamelessly oozing out of it. Dobro došlo works hard at serving up a provocative picture of the world whose fumes of madness we breathe in every day with total confidence, in a spirit akin to Adi Smolar’s satirical stance. So Mestni postopači follow the tried-and-tested recipe of trying to be different, both musically and lyrically. With sharp-tongued remarks and shallow sarcasm, the boys look for allies beyond the gloom of small-town logic, but for long-term success, to be honest, they’re missing a heaping dose of originality, which, paired with a more concrete sound (a must), would have made it much easier to build a one-of-a-kind record, one that would effectively spit in the bloated faces of the Slovenian pop establishment.
From musicians of Mestni postopači’s caliber you’d expect a bigger dose of confident imagination, the kind that would surely have gotten a better response from the critical mass while dishing out perverse acts from the everyday life of rock-solid Slovenianhood. Instead, the Mestni postopači blossoms come off as way too predictable, almost as if they’d been written in passing, for no reason, and consequently to even less use. So many of the album’s songs are simply too similar. After the opening “barber shop” adventure, which boasts an enviably subtle touch on guitar, and the still fairly decent Ne živi za naprej, Vikend kicks off a festival of dry, stiff numbers that lean loosely on the main tenets of blues, funk, and at times even folk and country. The palette of musical influences is admittedly colorful, but what good is that when the old boys, casually taking shortcuts, show the sterility of a hastily recruited repertoire at every turn. After a painful bout of mental hibernation, courtesy of Dejan’s maddening, loveless boredom in Vsi mi govorijo, you’ll be yawning wide again as you wade through the songs Praznik, Ko se zdani and Znoru, and not even the dispensable Kuharice so potrebne will jolt you out of your deep slumber.
Dobro došlo is yet another one of those albums where, even after repeated listens, it’s not entirely clear whether it’s a record worth the patience and nerves of a cultivated music consumer, or just one more in a long line of brilliant musical experiments that you can swallow, without any notable digestive trouble, while sipping the pint your jobless buddy bought you. Which is of course a real shame, because Mestni postopači are without a doubt capable of making bolder use of the band’s huge potential.
Lineup
Dejan Došlo: vocals, acoustic guitar
Marko Matjašič: guitar, backing vocals
Damir Jazbec: harmonica, backing vocals
Serger Jereb: bass
Iztok Repovž: drums
Production
Grant Austin
Tracklist
1. Frizer
2. Ne živi za naprej
3. Vikend
4. Le mladost
5. Praznik
6. Vsi mi govorijo
7. Znoru
8. Ko se zdani
9. Kuharice so potrebne
10. Zapi blues
