Self-released
Release date: 19.09.2015
Producer: Samo Lasič
Album length: approx. 44 min.
Genre: Jazz Rock Fusion
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Over the past year, the Slovenian Littoral has churned out most of the fresh studio releases in the worlds of rock and metal, plus a few albums that dig into folk melodies too. Koromač hail from Vrtojba, a little village that was once notorious for its snarky officials at the border crossing. Koromač started their career in a pretty different place from where they present themselves on their studio debut, “Punk Enough?”.
The recordings archived on their EP “Who Set the Lines?” (2011) tell that story. The band, which once cooked up an obscure sound leaning on hardcore and even crust, first lost its vocalist. They then brought a saxophone into the lineup to take over the vocal duties, and added a second drummer on top. So on “Punk Enough?” they run with two guitars, two drum kits, bass guitar and sax. Swap the sax for another bass (a Chapman Stick or a War guitar) and you’ve got the “double trio” King Crimson lineup from the mid-nineties. Sure, Koromač are light years away from the famous, cult, undisputedly pioneering prog-rock outfit, but “Punk Enough?” still hands over a whole pile of possible evolutionary seeds the band can freely launch itself from in the future. The album puts its eclecticism front and center, and it’s a record that catches the band at an evolutionary moment, right in the middle of a stylistic transition. It’s focused, no doubt about that, but at the same time, in how it expresses its musical substance, it’s extremely fragmented, often downright “undefined”.
So this is an entirely instrumental release. The jazz elements get smuggled into the band’s sound by the saxophone, which plays free-wheeling and totally unburdened in its dialogue with the guitar phrases. That means it often couldn’t care less about their format, and so it often doesn’t “submit” to them either. Hence the occasional feeling of chaos and motifs falling apart whenever the band dives into the bosom of free-spirited improvisation. Unpredictability and spontaneity are definitely here. The band recorded the album live, so it’s worth saying that you’ll never hear it played quite like this, the way the tape caught it, anywhere else, ever again. It’s played as if at a gig. That way, at their shows, the band has “protected” itself in advance from getting stuck in the obligatory “motif frames” of the studio originals. What’s more, every track on this album can grow artistically in whatever direction it likes down the line. In the riffs you can’t miss the possessed metallic chopping, leaning on the snarling, obscure realms of crust, hardcore and thrash metal. The sound is “knocked down”, garage-alive, rasping and droning. No after-the-fact cosmetic “ironing” or studio “polishing”. The songs strive for motivic variety. The drums and guitars too. Right from the start the band gives the impression that it’d rather practice, jam, improvise, “hone itself” and challenge itself than chase compact definition in its arrangements and, as a result, its songs. Then again, Koromač aren’t reinventing the wheel. Just dropping the name Miladojka Youneed is enough to make the point.
The band’s future remains wide open. It’s impossible to predict where it will launch its vision next. Just look at how the drums are used. There are still tons of untapped options here, and the question is what the band actually wants with two drummers. If it wants to squeeze out more experimental artistry, it’ll have to go back to school and listen to releases by various formations, say King Crimson, to broaden its horizons and get a feel for how to serve adventurousness (more effectively) with two drummers, and two guitarists as well. All while sparking and holding on to a sense of bizarreness and highly intellectual artistry that keeps the music artistically “elusive”. If it ends up cutting back on the branching of its songs, then it doesn’t need two drummers. The same goes for how it uses both guitars. The acoustic field of artistry, for example, stays completely open in that regard. On this debut album from a young, exploratory and ambitious band, the “breaking up” of rhythms is still more the exception than the rule. An upgrade of that element down the road is very much welcome, though.
“Punk Enough?” has a telling title, and you’ll have to find the answer to that question yourselves. So let’s let ourselves be surprised. The band’s next album will definitely be completely different. It has to be. The debut carries a nice crop of possible evolutionary seeds for the future, and the band mustn’t keep insisting on the “ego trip of self-satisfied” jamming from here on, because with the next release it’ll earn nothing but the meager label of “public rehearsal”, with the additional, thankless realization that it hasn’t evolved one bit. Koromač are definitely an interesting band for anyone drawn to musical weirdness, so they’re well worth following.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 8.0 / 10
Tracklist:
1. To Disroot
2. Insane
3. Elephant Stampedo
4. Freedom Manifesto
5. Forest Man
6. Ignoranca
7. Free Anal Talk
8. Ritards Dance
Lineup:
Aljaž Škrlep – guitar
Peter Kastrin – guitar
Jure Boršič – saxophone
Matjaž Bajc – bass guitar
Urban Kušar – drums
Žiga Ipavec – drums
