Self-released
Release date: May 17, 2019
Production: Eki Alilovski & Sandi Trojner
Album length: approx. 53 min
Genre: Hard Rock
This album is, plain and simple, one of the highlights of Slovenian music releases this year. And no, I’m not limiting that to “rock” releases, I mean music, period. After 13 years, Mary Rose are finally back with a new album, “Resničen svet”, which happily follows its predecessor “Feniks” (2006). Mary Rose used to be seriously active. But that was a long time ago, a good ten years back. Back then they played a ton of shows, and none other than the illustrious John Lawton (Uriah Heep, Lucifer’s Friend, ZAR, solo) picked them as his backing band. This is the same Lawton who came to Hala Tivoli in 1977 with the legendary Uriah Heep, on the tour promoting their then-current album “Firefly”, and people reportedly tore the seats out of the floor of the hall during that show.
Okay, before I stray too far. Reading the paragraph above, you’ve already figured out for yourselves that Mary Rose are, “firstly”, one of the hard rock legends of Slovenia, that they are, “secondly”, a crew of very good, if not outright top-class musicians, and that “thirdly”, in a career stretching back to the late eighties, they’ve very likely released very few albums. Yes, that last one is true too. “Resničen svet” is only their third album. Or, to be completely precise, actually the fourth. When it comes to the gaps between albums, only something like Lene kosti could break their record, and that’s down more to their “laziness”, as the name hints, than anything else.
Between “Feniks” and “Resničen svet”, the band weathered storms and went through hell, real hell, more than once on the verge of calling it quits. An album of great trials. When the devil himself tries you. How much man there is in you. How tough, how sinewy you are. A test of character. A huge test! And yes. This band is incredibly resilient. The release date of the new album kept slipping. And we’re not talking a few months here, but a few years. In short. Mary Rose survived and came out of this battle stronger than ever. “Resničen svet” is an authentic imprint of the road traveled over the last 13 years.
And? A truly excellent album. In every respect. Everything’s on it. Everything a true Slovenian hard rock soul craves. Piercing, signature, invasive riffs, arrangements polished down to the last detail, and a grabby, dynamic, live-sounding production! It’s hard to single out highlights, because you do the songs and the album a considerable injustice that way, the compositions on it are so evenly strong. Žak’s fantastic singing. A man anyone would take for a proper frontman delivers the best we’ve come to demand from Žak. Unstoppable once again! You can’t imagine Mary Rose without Eki and Žak. And here’s Eki. Eki’s guitar is wound up like hell, “Resničen svet” is definitely the heaviest album of the band’s career. He solos in a rage, solos in a trance, solos like it’s the last day before the apocalypse. The solos are a real treat of big ideas from this brilliant, incredibly experienced, thoroughly seasoned guitarist. Sandi Trojner takes on a tough job with flying colors, since he stepped into the shoes of the excellent Hammond player and predecessor Davor Kastelec, but picture it: when Deep Purple replaced Lord. Who could possibly follow that? Trojner is not Airey, just as Kastelec is not Lord, but Sandi brings even more variety to the arrangements with his sonic palette on the keys (in that respect he’s more “elastic” and supple), and he knows full well who Keith Emerson was, which means that with Kastelec’s departure the band lost absolutely nothing. You’ll find for yourselves the bits of Sandi’s playful “romps” on the album, proof that the band, if anything, gained with Sandi (Planet, Nagon, Sam II). Mitja Kobal’s bass line is venomously wound up and pulses through the whole album. With decisive presence and vigor. Don’t overlook David Debevec’s contribution on drums either, his stormy explosiveness on the tom-tom fills and the giant, cannon-like whacks of the snare, with which the burly drummer creates a strikingly contrasting depth across the album. The musical landscape of this hard rock album is used to the absolute fullest.
With a striking opening punch and a fiery start, as Preteklost, Vizija, Ob letu osorej roll by, and then the point where “Resničen svet” suddenly gets jet propulsion, Nagon stands as one of the album’s strongest compositions. It carries everything. A signature pre-chorus that perfectly ties the verse to the chorus, and the band builds the atmosphere in this song especially convincingly into a chorus crescendo, where Žak explodes in all his vocal brilliance. Another gem built up the same way sits just before the end. That’s the song Ples. The opener Preteklost is probably the darkest track of the band’s entire career that Mary Rose have recorded to date. Shame hard rock albums can’t do without ballads, but Kje si zdaj, even with its exemplary songwriting, is the forgettable moment of the album. Simple as that. The album’s other moments are far more interesting and penetrating, and leave the aforementioned ballad in the shade.
“Resničen svet” is a full-blooded hard rock album through and through, of Slovenian geographic origin. Much like you could say of every album put out by Šank Rock and/or that Requiem would have put out if they were still “breathing”. At the same time, “Resničen svet” is a thoroughly credible addition of Slovenian hard rock, with all its historical heritage, to the world league. You can feel the influence of classic rock pioneers like Deep Purple and Rainbow in the compositions, which we already discovered on “Feniks”, and you can also find a kindred spirit with eighties hard rock led by Whitesnake, Europe, Gotthard and Bon Jovi, and Mary Rose can be seriously infectious musically when they flirt even with AOR-style reconciliation, hinted at in the song Ko tako objame, which on first listen simply shines in its haul of atmospheric grabbiness. And in a typically Slovenian way, too. No need to say that Mary Rose, in this enormously overcrowded spectrum of global hard rock with trillions of different bands on the planet (blame the narrow expressive genre range of the term “hard rock”), are a completely homegrown band, with their own well-crafted and recognizable hard rock character that has no equal. You can only find close and distant relatives. The evolutionary link with “Feniks” is ever present, and “Resničen svet” is a triumphant continuation of that story.
This is an incredibly nostalgic album. It’ll warm all the hard rock souls of Slovenia who recently watched the film “Železne stopinje”, and especially those souls who spent their teenage years in the eighties and are now somewhere around their mid-forties, or have already waded into their fifties. A genius album in every respect. Detailed, balanced in its arrangements. Nothing is too much, nothing too little. Optimized. The tracks really went through an exceptionally long process of self-evolution, and before landing on the album, they also went through several interim changes (upgrades). The band took away, added, weighed, tested. Until it was completely satisfied. The result is an album of great perfection.
An album Mary Rose simply had to release. They owed it to us. But if only we all knew what ordeals and sacrifices the band went through for it? An album signed in sweat and blood. And you can feel it. You don’t find this much heart, the way the emotions and inexhaustible passions of these fiery lads, today hard rock gentlemen, fire it off unrestrained, so easily. Hearts on fire! In “Resničen svet” with Mary Rose. Potency and soaring energy. Like we’re looking at a quintet of five untamed 20-year-old stallions, just formed, and it’s 1985. “Resničen svet” will very likely become a classic of Slovenian hard rock over time. An album that, in its energy and vibe, is lost in time and space and ties in fascinatingly with everything its substance embodies, the dearly departed eighties, when hard rock reigned over the world’s music charts.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.5 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Preteklost
2. Vizija
3. Ob letu osorej
4. Resničen svet
5. Stampedo
6. Planet
7. Nagon
8. Paranoja
9. Kje si zdaj
10. Ko tako objame
11. Ples
12. Sam II
Line-up:
Žanil Tataj “Žak” – vocals
Eki Alilovski – guitar
Sandi Trojner – keyboards
Mitja Kobal – bass
David Debevec – drums
