Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Tide
Label: Cela Pametna Založba
Release: 2012
Length: 30:55
Rating: 3.5/5
Tide, the Slovenian new-wave hard rockers who staked out their creative career with the studio debut »Seven Days« in 2005, are back on the scene with their fourth album, fittingly titled »No.4«. After »Regeneration« (2009), on which the guys surprised everyone by boldly flirting, against all expectations, with retro sonic experiments, even evoking in the album’s expression a nostalgia for post-punk, or so-called dark rock of the second half of the eighties, with electronic, programmed sampling that draped its make-up over their otherwise hard-edged rock.
Considering that the stylistic detour on »Regeneration« was, in the ears of the more discerning gourmets, surely the band’s most interesting achievement up to that release, but on the other hand definitely uninteresting when it came to »buying« the masses of teenagers, Tide have turned with the new album back to what they’re loyally sworn to. Rock directness. If nothing else, the experimental »Regeneration« reflects creative courage and documents the maturity and experience of Kevin Koradin, an undoubted musical talent.
The fourth album boasts excellent sound production! Even though Koradin kept Dutch sound master Clifford Goilo by his side in the studio, the new album is a completely different sonic and stylistic story compared to »Regeneration«. With »No.4«, Tide have finally matured in this respect, they’ve ripened, and with full confidence they can now simply maintain this quality, nurture it, and build on it, unburdened, at this stage of their development. When the opening Riot Act spins up (also released as the album’s first single), you instantly lose the feeling that this is a Slovenian band. In terms of the new sound, Tide come across as thoroughly international, even American, and when Kevin Koradin’s vocal kicks in, that feeling gets all the more intense. It’s not out of place to note that with this album Tide have ripened for permanent rotation in MTV’s video slots. Both in terms of »mainstreamness« and creative credibility. Given the successful building of the band’s status and recognition, laid out by the debut »Seven Days, even if it sounds a touch provocative, it might be fair to say that »No.4« should have actually followed »Seven Days« as the second album. The new album is thus red-hot in sound, in tune with the trends of global rock »mainstream«, and fully credible in its songwriting. So it combines all the basic pre-conditions that can widen a band’s audience (Tide, in this case), even open the door to potential international success, while music critics will have a really hard time pinning any serious expressive »hiccups« or »squats« on them this time.
In just under 31 minutes, »No.4« is a sufficiently varied album. Riot Act is a track that will instantly grab the attention of old-school rockers and kids alike. It’s a straight-up rebel crusher, with an extremely massive, voluminous wall of guitar riffs into which Kevin’s furiously unyielding vocal sinks superbly. A foaming rock firebrand, raw, daring, arrogant, effectively calling the »gray mass« in its own idiom to try out vice! On the album, this is the moment that most obviously follows the current trend of old-school rock revival, but dressed in a production that’s fashionable for today. American-sounding. The track also instantly signals that this is an album where the band steps to the front! Tide as a quartet. The expressive forces of the band’s music are spread evenly among the four members! The opener drags you into that relentlessly. Tide sound alive and real in the studio. As if they were playing a gig in there! Next comes the hit Mud, where a simple, stoner-breathing QOTSA riff gets a little ex-grunge sentiment sneaked in, we might even say a touch of Alice In Chains destruction, and Kevin’s vocal sounds far more desperate and ragged, but fully convincing! The track keeps the scorching nature of the album’s opening, but at the same time conjures up a completely different mood.
In tracks like Love Is Gone, Believe, Hold On, the instrumental »prelude« Awakening, and also in the closing Low, you can feel the band flirting with the mainstream trends of international commercial success stories à la Kings Of Leon. What does that mean? A boost in melodic yield in the motifs, Kevin’s vocal adapted to a mid-to-lower-pitched, clean-sounding falsetto, and touches of keyboard minimalism, even programmed sound loops, sneaking into the arrangements, along with harmonized vocal »Oh-oh« chants meant to hammer home the melody. In terms of sound manipulation, we can partly say that Tide carried this element over from the previous album in minimal doses and, with their knowledge and experience, repackaged it and engraved it into the new stylistic picture. Guitar riffs still reign supreme in the sound, so no worries that the whole thing could »put you to sleep« in any way.
After Love Is Gone, though, Don’t Look Back and Make Me Feel conjure up another effective, uncompromising rock attack on the album! Both, one right after the other, placed back to back on the record. Both hold an excellent arrangement solution that balances melodic hunger (peaking in the chorus melodies) with the sharpness of rock daring and arrogance, which is simply what the band’s playing and the production of the new album reflect. Ahead of the dreamy closing Low, a track like Riot Act, Mud, or both of those mentioned in the previous sentence is missing, to keep the album at that foaming rock intensity and bristling edge that the band expresses and capitalizes on so effectively in those four tracks.
Believe is a ballad, a rarity in the band’s story. Maybe Tide are chasing the success of Waiting For The Rain (»Nothing Left To Loose«, 2007) with it. We’ll see what time brings, since Believe has already been picked for release as the second single from »No.4«.
»No.4« is more than a successful, convincing return to proper rock ground for the band! It reflects the quartet’s newly rediscovered solid integrity and unity! It’s clear from it that the crew’s camaraderie is tuned to the same frequency and that the wagons are all pushing in the same direction. »No.4« is a moment in the band’s career that gives Tide a solid, credible backbone and a springboard with a firm spring, on which the band can keep nurturing its musical expression and developing artistically, completely relaxed and unburdened. The songs stand credible in every arrangement, reflecting a wealth of experience and wisdom in how they approach creating. As such, the album »No.4« isn’t yet the peak of the band’s career, but it’s the right title above which, with an approach like the one they’ve set on »No.4«, the band will fully realize its creative peak in the future! »No.4« is thus an album of such artistic-maturing quality that it must finally open the door for the band to break through onto the international scene.
Lineup
Kevin Koradin – vocals, guitar
Tine Čas – guitar
Matej Batelič – bass guitar
Blaž Sotošek – drums
Production
Clifford Goilo & Kevin Koradin
Track list
1. Riot Act
2. Mud
3. Love Is Gone
4. Don’t Look Back
5. Make Me Feel
6. Believe
7. Awakening
8. Hold On
9. Low
