Label: Celinka Records
Release year: 2015
Production: Nula Kelvina
Album length: 38:12
Rating: 8.5 / 10
Ever since their 2011 debut “Možgani na paši,” Nula Kelvina have been winning people over with their presence and one-of-a-kind musical charisma. This is a band whose poetry and melodies sober up and wake up any music consumer you throw at them, a reflection of the exceptional intellect of the people behind it. Throughout their body of work, Nula Kelvina have always stirred things up, teased and provoked. In just the right dose. Healthy and down-to-earth. Their stage show has always had an element of theater, which they used to enrich their stage design while giving the crowd a wholehearted good time.
The new album, though, is meant to embody stage theater in its live performance from start to finish. A kind of theatrical play. The record has a clear red thread of confession running through it, resting on two worlds. These two are locked in perpetual war. Male and female. The relationship between them is never ideal. Good thing, too, or it would be boring. Marko Boh, the main driving engine and creative visionary behind Nula Kelvina’s musical direction, took a full run-up this time and charged at relationships between men and women with the biggest appetite, across all the various acts that any episode of everyday love life between two people brings. In other words, we’re talking about heterosexual love relationships. They may seem pretty old-fashioned these days, but thankfully not obsolete. In his poetry, Boh keeps adding that mild bite, that mild bitterness, constantly gently poking holes in the idea of the perfect love relationship, and in the glow of his masterful wordplay he once again comes across as fiercely lucid and sarcastic. That’s why “Levak na Luni” is such a blast from start to finish. Just like the band’s previous two releases.
To make the album ignite as authentically as possible, both on stage and in the studio, to ring true and relived, and to create a sense of virtual reality where you can melt into it live, the band invited Pliš singer Aleksandra Ilijevski to join in. Most of the album’s songs feature a male-female duet of Marko and Aleksandra, while some are sung entirely by a single lead vocal (male or female). The song Nisva še vrgla is actually a reworked, re-adapted version of Nisem še vrgel from the debut “Možgani na paši,” and something similar happened to the debut’s title track on the new album too. The lead single Maškerada appears twice on the album. The whole thing would make no sense at all if there weren’t a big, obvious gap in genre and delivery between the two versions. In the first one, sung entirely by Marko Boh (Maškerada), the vocals are all strutting rooster machismo, while in the second (Mam te rada), done as a cabaret chanson, Aleksandra steps in, soft and tender.
The album opens right where Drenov Grič ended. With the same tone, which, through some manipulation in the intro Drenov Grič – Luna, slowly rises in pitch and basically conjures up a flight to the Moon (straight out of Drenov Grič). That lucid intro flows into the title track Levak na Luni. The confession is embodied by the album cover itself, as well as by the lyrics, which are really the only thing on the record that strays from the red thread of male-female relationships, though even the closing Življenje diši doesn’t quite escape it. The Levak here is an individual who submits to life as dictated by the 1% of world conspirators and limitless billionaires. Always pushed down and bent over. And that’s most of us, really. We’re all levaks, the chumps. And we keep quiet. Let’s be honest. The Levak on the Moon, though, is the chump who escaped this crazy Earthly slavery and finally found peace on the Moon. Musically, Nula Kelvina come across as an outstanding outfit. The performance of the material is excellent, the interpretation of Marko’s poetry sparkles to the fullest, helped along by Aleksandra Ilijevski’s wonderfully beautiful, sensual vocals. The duet works with a seriously attractive, compatible contrast that it builds up at key moments. In this sense, Marko and Aleksandra really do come across as an old married couple, which is exactly the point of magnifying one of the feelings this album’s message is supposed to give birth to. And the band pulled it off. You also can’t overlook the new, excellent guitar work of Gašper Kržmanc, which spreads its wings in the instrumental middle eights with real sparkle. By placing just the right ratio of notes, and their arrangement, within short but juicily vivid solos, it makes the shifts in mood sway pleasingly and keeps the dynamic flow of the songs at a high level.
Musically, Nula Kelvina owe a great deal of thanks for their inspiration to the figure and work of The Beatles. The band adds elements of blues, rock’n’ roll, cabaret chanson and reggae (the freshly adapted version of Možgani na paši) to its musical mix. The music is first and foremost subordinated to high musical value, but with a rustic connotation. Hence the parallel with The Beatles. The tracks are compact, catchy right away, and that’s why this is an album whose songs could happily fill the radio airwaves. And if the times were truly kind to real creativity in music, this kind of music would slowly turn around the face of the Slovenian charts and gradually heal the impoverished face of the Slovenian music mainstream, where listeners’ receivers are usually peppered with absolute musical garbage.
In short. “Levak na Luni” is another outstanding record that’s immense fun, yet also hits home and shakes the listener awake through Marko Boh’s sparkling, razor-sharp lyrics. It’s also a big teaser for the full-blown theatrical excess waiting for us at upcoming Nula Kelvina shows, where they’ll perform the whole album on stage! If its predecessor “Drenov Grič” defined the stylistic foundation of Nula Kelvina’s music, then the follow-up “Levak na Luni” cements that stylistic direction of vivid songwriting charisma and artistic originality.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Drenov Grič – Luna
2. Levak na Luni
3. Maškerada
4. Vse odvečne besede
5. Kako si?
6. Kako naj ti povem?
7. Nisva še vrgla
8. Prebudiva se v sanje
9. Le zaspi zaspi
10. Možgani na paši
11. Življenje diši
12. Mam te rada
Lineup:
Aleksandra Ilijevski – vocals
Marko Boh – vocals, keyboards
Gašper Kržmanc – guitar, backing vocals
Klemen Kotar – bass guitar, saxophone, backing vocals
Miha Kržmanc – drums, percussion
