Label: Nika Records
Production: Peter Dekleva
Release date: April 26, 2019
Genre: Alternative Rock
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John F. Doe, a Slovenian rock outfit from Bled, are back after four years with the follow-up to their promising debut “JFD“, which dropped in 2015. On that first record the band proved they were no one-hit flash in the pan, that this is a band reaching for a fully formed character, and John F. Doe really did present themselves as a group cultivating homegrown originality, a provocative edge and plenty of pull. The debut alone is a record of serious aesthetic value, a production and arrangement job done with great skill, and its alternative rock nature, with a musical seductiveness that also flirted with the legacy of Britrock, crawled under your skin in no time.
But “Druga stran” is an album the band couldn’t have named more fittingly. For it, the group decided to step away from what the debut hinted at. So, a kind of “other side” of the band. They did keep the alternative rock nature and carried it over to the new album, loud and clear, but in their search for big organic vibes and sonic expanses they dug deeper into what the legacy of rock has to offer. They even sound mildly retro. Both in the production and thanks to the Hammond-style sound that riddles the whole thing. In fact, the Hammond, right alongside the lead vocal, nearly dominates the sound of the new album.
In terms of musical artistry, the guys have made an obvious leap in maturity on the new album. The excellent ballad Drugi del sveta confirms it best. It’s superbly arranged from head to toe, including sensual singing and a vocal that grabs you the whole way through. It’s also skillfully wrapped in vocal harmonies in the chorus crescendo, where the Hammonds add even more drama and theater and the shift in mood between verse and chorus is especially vivid. One of the most mature moments on the new album. The guitar soloing wakes up properly in this track, along with some very cleverly woven-in guitar ornaments in the second half of the song, which only strengthens the solid atmosphere of this excellent piece, a blend of hungry drama and solemnity. In the verse of Zvok tišine the Hammonds borrow a few fleeting structures that recall the good old days of The Doors.
Peter Dekleva had his fingers in this one, and that says a lot. Peter is a sound purist and counts as an extremely refined aesthete in this regard. The sound is recorded analog and the band sounds as organic as it gets. Retro-sounding. There’s some looking back to the pioneering days of old-school seventies rock, but make no mistake. All of it is filtered through the philosophy and perception of the generation of new rockers that John F. Doe belong to. That’s why Druga stran is an exceptionally bold mix of old and new, that is, the modern (Skeptik). The pop aesthetic sparkles attractively through the mildly gloomy, introspective alternative rock content of the record and begs for airplay on the radio (the punchy, relentless Puščava, and right after it the contrastingly composed Hyde). The rhythmic structures are simple, but they get the listener swaying and even, more than that, moving on the dance floor. The vocal is polished and utterly captivating, which makes it both a hugely important building block and the foundation on which John F. Doe convince you that this is a truly fully formed musical combo. It adds the dot on the “i” of this whole story of a homegrown musical dossier.
One more thing. All the lyrics are in Slovenian this time. So “Druga stran” consequently, and quite logically, picked up the musicality of the geographic origins of the sunny side of the Alps. Simple as that. That’s dictated by the fiddling with meter that comes with using the Slovenian language. So the nature of the record is now familiar to everyone who listens to Siddharta (the verse in Povej naglas), or especially the first two albums by Dan D.
Heads up. There aren’t just eleven tracks. After the closer Poletni utrip, there’s a hidden, yearningly acoustic bonus track. And no, it doesn’t pad out the runtime, it’s worth hearing every time, the way you listen to an album from head to tail. Speaking of the album as a whole, John F. Doe did a great job arranging the tracks on it (the running order). The start and the end are both very punchy, with Fenix and Poletni utrip. They’re summery, wound-up songs with catchy lead phrases and a piercing vocal performance that grabs you especially in the catchy chorus melodies. “Druga stran” also feels more rock-wound than its predecessor, but what really grabs you is its organic, living nature, the warm shades, the superbly placed contrasts between the low tones, the solid sonic mass in the guitar-keyboard dialogue, and the distinctive, deeply committed and sensual vocal, plus the clearly spotlighted bass line with a big groove payoff. We caught all of this on the debut, but with “Druga stran” it’s matured and polished even better. John F. Doe are also very skilled at fitting out the vocal backing and harmonizing the lead vocal with additional voices, which further strengthens the individual moods on the album.
With the new album the band has “stretched out”. It showed its “other side”, yet kept the homegrown, self-grown stamp it had been nurturing since the debut. A band with character, a fully formed vision and a potent creative drive that isn’t afraid to flirt with “otherness” and try the untried, so it would be no surprise if the third album turned out significantly different again, from both the debut and “Druga stran”.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Fenix
2. Continental
3. Puščava
4. Hyde
5. Vesolje
6. Skeptik
7. Kratek stik
8. Povej naglas
9. Drug del sveta
10. Zvok tišine
11. Poletni utrip
Lineup:
Marko Zemljič – vocals, backing vocals
Aleš Svetina – guitar, backing vocals
Luka Zemljič – keyboards, backing vocals
Tilen Knaflič – bass guitar, backing vocals
Bojan Marinko – drums, percussion, backing vocals
