Label: Celinka Records
Release date: 25.01.2013
Production: Gašper Kržmanc
Album length: 45:32
Genre: Alternative Rock / Jazz / Pop
Nula Kelvina have started to burn! They’re on fire! Which is surprising, considering the cabaret-swinger sway of their debut »Možgani na paši«. During the stretch of waiting for the new album, which took a sudden turn, Gašper Kržmanc became a full-blooded member of the band and went all in on guitar, cranking up his Telecaster. So Nula Kelvina have now grown into a quartet, even though Kržmanc had already helped the band out on stage for live shows. That the guitar has won itself a major spot in Nula Kelvina’s new sound will be clear to you at the latest the moment it shows off in »22.10« (the fourth track on the album).
The 45 minutes of music on »Drenov Grič« continue the story from the previous album and deepen the musical identity of »Možgani na paši«. In fact, you could argue that Drenov Grič is an even more varied and colorful album when you compare it to the more “cautious” debut. The intro »Prisluhni« alone is a announcement that the band has cooked up something new and different this time. It’s a pleasant, dreamy, soothing (that’s exactly what it’s for) prelude that gets the listener ready for the start of the Drenov Grič story. This intro could easily have been merged into one with »Kako naj te pogrešam«, a tense old-school Rhythm N’ Blues drama, where things on the album suddenly click into place. Here we get the charismatic Marko Boh, building the drama beautifully from verse to chorus crescendo, and as already mentioned, the guitar holds the structure of the instrumental landscape firmly, building the backdrop for Boh’s vocals. Yes. Nula Kelvina have weighed »Drenov Grič« down with rock.
The lucidly sarcastic side of the band blazes in full force in »Dan zvezde«, a piercing, sharp-witted yet subtly placed whip of Boh’s poetry in full bloom! Cynicism is firmly nailed onto the album, and flipping a situation on its head is really the absolute killer element that pulls Nula Kelvina’s music up above the waterline, since on its own the music doesn’t bring any particular or original artistic provocation. Together with the generally cheeky twisting of words into syllables that keep the listener in a good mood all the way through, without veering off the track of delivering the truth that chafes us in everyday life. As said, »Dan zvezde« is one of the most successful compositions in this respect, and on top of that it creeps straight into your ear, a candidate for the album’s second single! But that’s a mere cat’s cough compared to the burlesque »Danes«. A carousel weighed down with reggae rhythm, where you can’t escape the parallels with Balkan tavern ruckus. And the story? When a woman »gets on your last nerve« it’s not far from Hendrix’s Hey Joe, which demands buying a gun. The album never runs out of battles of the sexes. Also in the album’s finale, where first comes »Na Golici (pod goro)«, with a crafty insertion of an ornamental phrase drawn from the spirit of the melos of the Slovenian squeezebox, in the bosom of a power blues rock framework, and right after it »Kje so roke« – which explains the doctrine of groping girls.
Since the music has always swirled in the glow of cabaret-thick blues, the solid foundation of the guitar’s chord work brings the course of events into an even punchier light, a more dynamic liveliness. The guys don’t hide the coefficient of sweet perversion in their stories either. Such is the cheeky, softly swaying yet teasing bluesy waltz »Med s trebuha«, the poetry needs no analysis. »Moje poreklo« already demands a “parental advisory” sticker – a perfectly built-up, strictly organic blues-jazzy swinging pulser, where tears of laughter at the sharp candor of the verses are guaranteed.
Quite a bit has already been said about the guitar of the new Nula Kelvina by this point in the piece. But in »Včeraj«, for the first time in the band’s career, a guitar phrase steps into the foreground of the arrangement. Fans of hard-hitting hard rock structures are pricking up your ears already, right? Another peak in the hedonistic tale of the coldest band in the world. Chosen as the album’s first single. Totally justified, since it’s one of the most successfully arranged compositions, and the radio waves will love it big time.
And yet all this damn tasty trickster, which blends the genres of blues, jazz, and now noticeably rock too into a juicy musical tale in its own special way, carries a recognizable Slovenian label. In the background it carries feelings of melancholy, gloom, blackness – that very Slovenian brand of humor, which puts the hero in the focal point of a tragic end. »Drenov Grič« hasn’t just held onto the musical identity Nula Kelvina laid out on their debut, it digs deeper into that story and stretches it wider. It never runs out of lucid jabs, and the band proves that in all their sparkling, penetrating metaphors they can’t lose the red thread, which also remains the most attractive element of Nula Kelvina’s musical starting points.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Track list:
1. Prisluhni
2. Kako naj te pogrešam
3. Dan zvezde
4. 22.10
5. Med s trebuha
6. Včeraj
7. Danes
8. Moje poreklo
9. Sanje
10. Na Golici (pod goro)
11. Kje so roke
12. Komad za nafilat plato
Lineup:
Marko Boh – vocals, keyboards,
Gašper Kržmanc – guitar, backing vocals
Klemen Kotar – bass guitar, saxophone, clarinet, rattles, backing vocals
Jure Rozman – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Janez Dovč – accordion
Katja Varderber – vocals
