Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Big Foot Mama
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2012
Running time: 40:53
Rating: 4/5
After five years, Big Foot Mama are back with a new studio album, their seventh, called Izhod. Five years between two albums is a long stretch, and it raises a whole bunch of nagging questions. What happened in those five years? What did the band’s evolutionary path over that time leave imprinted on the musical substance of their new record? And so on…
Big Foot Mama present their new album in a mature production light. The new sound is forged in tones of organic warmth and puts the core of rock’s raw nakedness front and center in just the right adrenaline dose, keeping all the trademark, instantly recognizable nature of this band’s trivially condensed, straight-to-the-point storytelling, a band that can’t stand much philosophizing in its musical legacy. On top of that comes that characteristic pop sentiment, which on this album pulls the musical essence more successfully than ever toward a »jangle« guitar sound, and with a combination of compact melodiousness and rock-and-roll itch it keeps the door wide open to radio airplay (Užitek na »replay«, with its handclap-style dance »beat« underneath, or the song Bruno).
Unlike its predecessor »Važno, da zadane« (2007), which embodied a hedonistic rock n’ roll whirl, »Izhod« is a notch more restrained, personal and confessional, peering deeper into the souls of the quintet. In places it even feels a touch dark (Iskra, Pot iz trnja, the acoustic and sensually fragile Kratek stik). Stylistically Big Foot Mama stay right where they were, so the general verdict applies to »Izhod« too: this is a typical Big Foot Mama album from head to toe. But the new record doesn’t necessarily push the hunt for a hit, whose contrived effect used to be seriously distracting with Big Foot Mama in the past, even if it did successfully win over teenage girls’ hearts.
The sound is boldly »condensed«, like never before. The contrasts are clear, and the bass line pulses and tears along in the plain rhetoric of an unpretentious, catchy melodic payoff, just what the Big Foot Mama musical idiom demands. It’s precisely the guitar work, in the arrangements and in the structure of the added embellishments, that proves the guys have matured artistically. There’s the juicy stepping on the wah-wah effect (in the transitions of Smet) and a whole heap of other minimalist ornaments (the »stereo chorus« caress of guitars in the intro of the dreamy Pot iz trnja). Pot iz trnja is a serious, dark song with a proud melos in the chorus line, tailor-made for the live set as well as for a single release, and it doesn’t go looking for the pushy catchiness of that obligatory »wanna be« hit like Ona je samo za mene from the previous album. That dark veil over Pot iz trnja, or the excellent opener Iskra, carries a few possible parallels with the sentiment of »The Cult-esque« erotogeny. The main carrier of those feelings is the guitar arrangements. Skočir’s vocal has thickened over the years and gained a layered, tangible interpretive depth. On the album »Izhod« Big Foot Mama also keep that familiar face of sarcasm that has wound through their whole career. Take the tantalizingly cheeky Nor sigurno ne, or the sneeringly lovable Bruno toward the end. And of course the album doesn’t lack furious rage with a high dose of high-octane noise (Iskra, Lepa laž, Naj lajajo).
Big Foot Mama are gentlemen today, musically matured. Lyrically they remain trivial rockers who aren’t reinventing the wheel, who aren’t Einstein and never will be. They’re loyal to their rock n’ roll hairdo, which among popular Slovenian bands brings its legacy closest to the pre-Cambrian sounds of the first rock n’ roll excess, as defined long ago by The Rolling Stones. Of course, all of it is caught in the Slovenian way of grasping rock n’ roll messaging, which has always put Big Foot Mama in a special spot in the mosaic of Slovenian mainstream music.
With the album »Izhod«, Big Foot Mama remain at the center of the rock pulse in Slovenia. »Izhod« keeps the signature rock n’ roll sermon of the band intact , yet it sounds serious, mature, and tighter and more dynamically defined in its arrangements than any Big Foot Mama album to date.
Lineup
Grega Skočir – vocals
Daniel Gregorič – guitar
Zoran Čalić – guitar
Alen Steržaj – bass
Jože Habula – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Nina Kay – vocal duet on track no. 12
Žarko Pak – guitar on track no. 6
Martin Janežič “Buco” – percussion, backing vocals
Borut Antončič – backing vocals on track no. 5
Lea Likar – backing vocals on track no. 9
Production
Žarko Pak
Track list
1. Iskre
2. Slab spomin
3. Tiha voda
4. Smet
5. Pot iz trnja
6. Nor sigurno ne
7. Lepa laž
8. Užitek na “replay”
9. Umazan dež
10. Naj lajajo
11. Bruno
12. Kratek stik
