Artist: MI2
Released: 2006
Rating: 3.5/5
“Dobrodošli na dvor” is the fifth studio album from Mi2 and a textbook case of where the “mainstream” of the Slovenian rock scene should be sitting today. Mi2 have fired off an incredibly mature record, a great jigsaw of convincing, powerfully expressive poetry and a refined feel for handling that phenomenon called rock’n’roll. This is an album that buries the listener in raw, honest emotion! Loyal as a dog!
“Dobrodošli na dvor” is a herald of the purest stance of sincere rebellion that a healthy approach to rock’n’roll can serve up. Right off the bat, the opener Odvisn od vremena is a splendid fold-out of cheeky rock stampede, drenched in a whiff of punky amateurism and tastefully laced with a cynical SKA twist in the transition. Straight after it comes the half-ballad Zbudi me za 1. maj, a true rock testament. Kregar is stunningly deep and real in it! This is a song with “evergreen” potential. Yes! Definitely yes! But in some other, already outlived story! These days we sleep carelessly and dream of the days of “honor and pride”. Then one day the moment of salvation arrives, and we wake up again for the First of May. Our beautiful old First of May! A superb poem that can always touch the depths of even the most hardened yuppie heart of every “slovencelj” who’ll chant “za naše” (for our own) while enjoying the boundless depravity and corruption that, say, today’s Slovenian Eurovision selection personifies.
Mi2 have tasted the truth! Riper than ever, they’ve written verses full of cynicism and resignation to fate, and yet they’re accompanied throughout by full and total “common sense”. That, by all expectations, is supposed to guide the prudence of every individual in our Slovenian society, which even in the new millennium is still ruled by spinelessness and bootlicking. The lyrics are as expressive as they come, and they’re dressed in musical form just as fittingly. The two factors complement each other beautifully and, in synergy, amplify the expressive power of the songs themselves. Put together, you simply get what rock’n’roll demands: a combination of sincere, untamed yet refined rebellion that metaphorically attacks everything alive head-on, from the first hit. Joining it is a brilliant sense of humor, a parody of our recent Yugo-history and of today’s carefree corruption of the self-proclaimed lefts and rights, to whom “we slovenceljns nod along with a bend of the knee” (lyrics from the song Mucek, you’ll be taught obedience yet).
Of all the songs, Mi2 perhaps go after the “logic of the people” most subtly, through the lyrics of the title track. Let slovencelj hit slovenceljn! A closed circle, a closed, perfect, indestructible machine that runs flawlessly, next to which even the system in The Matrix is a proper kindergarten. The typically extreme, wonderfully spiced and refined prank of the song Tarzan is perhaps the peak of the band’s poetic punch and with it of their musical expression. It’s about a guardian of black gold – oil, and that is? Well, not worth mentioning. The album carries a superbly tightened, stripped-down “rock” cover of Sve ove godine (orig. Indexi), which in Mi2’s hands takes on the air of a chilling detective story. O’grlo, backed by a cabaret honky tonk rhythm, brings to life the helplessness of a broken man who someone has obviously thrown out on the street, most likely an ex-lover. In short, a blend of everything we are. Were. Will be. Today, yesterday, tomorrow. Forever and ever.
The guys have pulled off an album that’s totally convincing! The pictures in Mi2’s messages literally come alive! “Dobrodošli na dvor” is definitely a kind of historical document of the Slovenianness we live today and inherited across the centuries from our great-grandfathers. The guys have been hardened through the years, and after all the battles, victories and defeats, they’ve shed every last mask. No expectations, no straining. Just serving it up bare, i.e. a healthy, simple dose of rock’n’roll that hits you from the first go. Kregar and Dirnbek are the absolute winners in how they deliver the lyrics and in their play at the microphone.
And the fruit of all this honest intellect of the band, delivered without any hide-and-seek, is a gorgeous record and really a monument to Slovenianness. A classic piece through which the winds of a distant past blow, from bands of that kind and the once-healthy all-Slovenian rock craft, i.e. the mainstream scene of the eighties, ruled by Avtomobili, Buldožer, Pankrti, Lačni Frantz. Left and left again, in short right there in the league of mature, real rock’n’roll, somewhere in the company of The Drinkers, Orleki, Res Nulius…? Let’s say… No big goals, hopes or wishes… We’re talking about damn groundedness, pure “rock” authenticity, damn realism, a note that opens the eyes of dreamers and can always drive a stake into the heart of the modern Slovenian all-national smallness and provincial cretinism we’re so blindly proud of. If Ivan Cankar were a “rocker”, he’d play in Mi2! Let the First of May come already, so we can wake up!
Lineup
Tone Kregar – vocals
Jernej Dirnbek – vocals
Egon Herman – guitar
Robert Novak – bass
Igor Peter Orač – drums
Production
Peter Ošlaj, Peter Beznec & Mi2
Tracklist
1. Odvisn od vremena
2. Zbudi me za 1. Maj
3. Sve ove godine
4. Tarzan
5. Sv. Margareta
6. Dobrodošli na dvor
7. O grlo
8. Ti nisi ta
9. Maybe baby
10. Mucek
11. Večer pred Rudekvo gorco
