Label: Dallas Records
Release date: 25. 2. 2021
Production: Denis Horvat & Jure Lesar
Album length: 36.55 min
Genre: singer-songwriter / Rock / Pop
Rating: 8.0/10
At the end of this February, the second solo album from Slovenian coast-based musician Jure Lesar landed, titled “Je kaj novega”. It wasn’t long ago that tracks from “Zemljin sin” (2018, RockLine review) were spinning on the radio, and already the singles from the new album are in rotation. Credit where it’s due. In a relatively short time, this ambitious young guy has strung two solo albums together. In a land of rock-frustrated souls, where for decades a fake moral veil has ruled that only what an accordion plays counts, two rock albums released in such quick succession are no small thing. Eight new songs and a little under 37 minutes of music. For this kind of style, eight tracks at that running time is actually not many. Has our Jure become a prog rocker in the meantime? No need to worry, no shocks here. Radio-friendly rock and pop is still on the menu, and the new album tries out different strategies for making its way into rotation on mainstream radio.
All things considered, this time around the album feels more ‘bluesy’ than the vibe of the debut. Well, at least that’s the overall feeling while listening. Don’t go looking for any special musical adventurism, because it isn’t there, but even in minimalism it’s hard to achieve insight. Actually, even harder. Jure has already proven in the past that he has an internalized and refined sense for building a composition that catches fast, if not instantly. We tasted that on both albums of his previous (alternative rock) band Eskobars too. The guy is definitely maturing, and what’s especially likable on this album is the core of it: the search for a big, organic way of delivering musical substance.
You have to be a little prepared for Jure. For his vocal approach. It’s distinctive, which matters a lot in carving out an artist’s recognizable note, especially now that he’s stepped into singer-songwriter shoes. The tone and approach carry a touch of dark character throughout, and the occasional ‘nasal’ quality while delivering verses can become a factor that drives plenty of people away from his music. That’s a fact, and it also defines his audience, his followers. The guy doesn’t skimp on wit and black sarcasm, as in his lyrics, more than ever before, he wrestles with the great phenomenon of the universe called woman. Well, in some twenty years, or maybe sooner, Jure will probably figure out that he was wasting his time on it. And yet. Most good rock music would never have been written if it weren’t for the muses beside the musical ones. So on “Je kaj novega” too, everything is exactly where it should be. The album is an honest reflection of Jure’s confessional nature and of the time in which it was made.
Jure has made a very ‘feel-driven’ album. Extremely sensual, organic, honest. The guitar sound is often emphasized, ‘pushed’ to the front, breathing down the vocals’ neck in the sonic landscape, while the phrasing coexists in a conciliatory and appealing dialogue with the keyboards, which build a varied arsenal of sound pastels that the guitars grab onto, and they don’t shy away from the sound of Hammond organs, either. The bluesy and pop-charm vibration that runs across the tracks, even though Jure does it his own way, aims at the type of audience that Hamo won over a little before him with his Tribute 2 Love. That realization is softened by the collaboration with some of the album’s instrumentalists.
The pieces are seductive, punchy, and carry a contagious ‘jangle’ sound of guitars (some of them ‘assaulting’ ones too), which saturates the pop-flavored backdrop of the album. Artistically, the crew around Jure has grown another step up, showing remarkable coherence and chemistry in the performance of the new material. From the opening lead track Parfum, surely the album’s most magnetic moment, where the erotic charge is underlined in the outro by Zoran Čalić’s (Big Foot Mama) predatory, avalanche-like slide guitar, through the artistically most challenging, dynamic and interesting song on the album, Žeja, to the especially intimate and personal closing ballad, Malo po malo, “Je kaj novega” delivers a lovely and fun experience. Compositionally and production-wise. The album is different from its awakening, brighter, even naive, but certainly excellent predecessor “Zemljin sin”. On “Je kaj novega” Jure at times sounds more down-to-earth than on the album with the earthy title. More mature, more experienced, less vulnerable, but again honest, down-to-earth in his strokes, and penetratingly distinctive.
And one more thing. The songs on “Je kaj novega” are, once again, born for the stage. They have a real dose of rock dynamite that’s gripping, instantly appealing, and can be cranked up as much as you like live, which means it will grab you as much as you like, too. That’s for sure. That’s why it has to hit the stage as soon as possible, so “Je kaj novega” can show the ultimate reach of its own version of rock and roll. Let it happen. ASAP.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Parfum
2. Med in čajna
3. Si kaj utrujena
4. Prihajam domov
5. Moja moja
6. Je kaj novega
7. Žeja
8. Malo po malo
Lineup:
Jure Lesar – vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar
Denis Horvat – synthesizers, Hammond, piano, bass guitar, backing vocals
Jan Fanedl – electric guitar
Luka Mrdakovič – bass guitar and double bass on track no. 6
David Morgan – drums
Guest musicians:
Zoran Čalić – electric and lead guitar on track no. 1
Matej Kože – saxophone on track no. 2
Martin Janežič ‘Buco’ – percussion on tracks no. 2, 3, 4 and 6
choir on track no. 7:
Aleksandra Belle, Brina Klemenčič, Danijel Grbec, Darko Mavrič, David Morgan, Denis Horvat, Iva Ivančič, Janko Novak, Jure Lesar, Katja Dekorti, Lauro Skomina, Marko Jezernik, Mirko Potočnik, Pablo Baez, Robert Letica, Sonja Kočevar, Teja Pribac, Teo Collori, Tonja Senčar, Špela Bobič
