Label: Dallas Records
Year of release: 2010
Production: Dejan Radičevič
Album length: 33.14
Genre: Alternative Rock / Indie Rock
It’s been a long time since a band on the Slovenian music scene was taken under the wing of a bigger Slovenian label, was a newcomer, wasn’t weighed down by trends, and still expressed its musical talent loud and clear. What’s more, I’m talking about a Slovenian band with a recognizable self, an artistic vocabulary all its own. Eskobars is the name!
The trio, which grew into a quartet by the time the album came out, has everything a healthy alternative rock band needs these days. It’s arrogant, it’s biting, it’s erogenous, lyrically mature rather than lame, and it crackles with cocky rocker voltage. In the quieter moments it knows how to play up subtlety with seriously effective results. And mind you, the guys pull this off on a debut, which means they grew up on a diet of healthy rock music and didn’t fall for “shooting” out cheap, trendy snake oil with a short shelf life (and, sadly, a quick trip to the recycling bin along with it).
Insight is Eskobars’ middle name. What makes the band so special? Despite the directness and rock triviality the band puts front and center in everything it does, the arrangements underneath the songs reveal far more than meets the eye at first glance, or the ear on that “first spin”.
If we start dissecting the songs and peeling back the veil of their packaging layer by layer, we find an effective blend of genres drawing on rock n’ roll, rockabilly, blues, punk and, you won’t believe it, even the foundations of classicism in rock music. Here not even The Beatles are far off, nor some other intriguing retro-sound touches, even psychedelia (Zemljin sin). Of course, it’s all adapted to the times. But made without a trace of imitation or fashion-trend baggage.
Jure Lesar’s vocals are the main “culprit” for why we can ultimately stuff Eskobars into the hard-to-define box of “alternative” rock. His approach is mocking, manly, deliberately “nasal”, even deliberately dissonant. Even though he lays down a nice helping of melody with his voice, his accent is constantly punkishly snarky. That’s the dose of energy rock is known for: hooliganism, cheek and hedonism. Eskobars come at it with sparkling sarcasm and rarely any revolt. They’ve got the touch of goofy scoffers who don’t have much time to go looking for others to blame for their (eventual) troubles.
The album kicks off mischievously with Cosmo Blues and a kind of Franz Ferdinand “marching”, which the guys then top off by pouring oil on the fire with the following Sobotne noči, winning you over above all with contagious choruses that instantly crank things up to a high level of loose, vibrating rock energy. After two delightful marches, designed in completely different ways, comes the exact opposite. Tragedy in the song Morski ples, where the melancholy deepens thanks especially to the sparkling use of mournful accordion tunes. If I may go on laying out the wide variety of motifs in how these songs are built, the album then leaps back up to the level of the opener with the hedonistic Girls From Klagenfurt, which tells us the guys are Rolling Stones fans. This is followed by the almost singer-songwriter, acoustically subtle lament Čas ločitve. A peak of higher punk pulsing arrives in Cirkus, where the band gives a “Slovenian” nod to the melodic choices of the likes of Niet (the chorus). Cirkus also belongs in the energy class of songs like Cosmo Blues, Sobotne noči or Girls From Klagenfurt. The action is livened up again by the reggae-tinged, grimacing burlesque Ura mladosti, while the cunning Čevljar boasts one of the best moments of Eskobars poetry on the album. Then there’s the supremely smart combination of almost salsa-style swaying rhythms and blues rhetoric in the again subtler Potnik. The closer belongs to the fascinating Zemljin sin, with an excellent mingling of natural, retro psychedelic sounds and neo-classical arrangement solutions, with a hint of yearning melancholy of the kind that gives away the band’s “Slovenian” roots in its melos. The intro alone is a surprising departure from everything the band has offered earlier on the album. As a composition, it’s the definite peak of the record.
What we have here is a richly colorful album that packs a lot of tangible information into just over 33 minutes. Every last track convinces with the quality of its musical character, stamped with artistic recognizability and originality. Let me also mention that the band is sworn to the natural shaping of organic collages that build a juicy, richly branching sonic spectrum. Over the course of the album it pulses with life the whole way through. As a band betting on the card of primal rock n’ roll sharpness, Eskobars have maturely gone beyond the experience of arranging right from the start, adding string arrangements that effectively lift the atmospheric side of songs like Ura mladosti and Zemljin sin. “Eskobars” is an album of pure alternative rock that, besides the directness this approach demands, knows nothing of hollowness, tried-and-tested formulas of recycled burnout, or any need for pushy, thoughtless blasting. All the sonic elements on this album are stacked and tuned into an ideal coexistence, winning you over with witty arranging and the sharp message behind its colorful musical content. Hats off to Dallas too, the label that has definitely lent a supporting hand to a band cut from the right creative cloth.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Track list:
1. Cosmo Blues
2. Sobotne noči
3. Morski ples
4. Girls From Klagenfurt
5. Čas ločitve
6. Cirkus
7. Ura mladosti
8. Čevljar
9. Potnik
10. Zemljin sin
Lineup:
Jure Lesar – vocals, guitar
Rok Druscovich – bass guitar, backing vocals
Bogdan Sojič – drums, percussion, backing vocals
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Denis Beganovič (Kiki) – keyboards
Neža Buh (Neisha) – keyboards (track 10)
Selver Kobilica – accordion on track 3
Gordana Buh – piccolo (track 7)
STRING QUARTET (tracks 7 and 10):
Janez Podlesek – violin
Miloš Simic – violin
Maja Rome – viola
Klemen Hvala – cello
