Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: NeSeBat
Label: ZARŠ Records
Released: 2015
Rating: 4/5
NeSeBat are an alternative rock outfit that’s been around since 2011. The members come from different musical backgrounds, but they’re all tied together by Slovenia’s alternative rock underground, through bands like Buldogi, Crazed Farmers, 2227, Rhythm Thieves, It’s Not For Sale and Komakino.
You could say the quartet is, roughly speaking, a kind of culmination of the musical voices of the bands listed above. In that sense it’s almost unnecessary to point out that the band manages to build on a recognizable musical vocabulary right out of the gate. They’re not reinventing the wheel, since they stay within a fenced-off genre premise of trivial, instantly catchy punk rock, or rather battered, scuffed-up rock’n’roll, but the key to this record’s expressive punch and staying power is the heartfelt way they approach the material itself. The moods look out on a gloomy horizon: it’s all just an illusion of a beautiful present in which we fool ourselves under the baton of fear and absolute control, and the dominance of a fist-sized elite over the masses that (nicely or not so nicely) has been keeping that elite propped up on its own shoulders for 2,000 years.
NeSeBat come across as tight, bold, biting, even arrogant, though in the »softer« parts of the songs they can effectively flip the atmosphere and swing the album’s dynamics, which is seriously catchy. Against a backdrop of simple, predictable phrases, the vocals act as the main generator of the impressions the album’s musical expression hands the listener. At times deliberately nasal and piercing, psychotically schizophrenic, even stoned out of its mind, and at other times (on purpose) »dissonantly absent«, yet at the same time incredibly penetrating and, most importantly, charismatic and convincing when delivering punchy rebel slogans and quotes. NeSeBat, in other words, go straight for the heart of delivering their own musical essence.
Even in terms of motifs, with a full thirteen tracks, the album is still varied enough to keep the listener hooked through the running time and entertained. The mix of cynicism and dark, melancholic outlooks is, musically speaking, already almost proverbially typical of the Slovenian approach in the alternative music scene. And so there isn’t accidentally too much musicality, NeSeBat also implement deliberate dissonance, even »sneaking in« extra chords that are absolutely not tolerated in school music scales.
The album keeps a live sound: the band played most of it in the studio the way they would at a gig, and that’s a big plus that brings authenticity and rawness to the record. The only additional makeup, or »bonus experiment«, you’ll run into is the violin. Next to the hollow, booming growl of the guitars, it even adds a touch of psychedelia (My Personal Recession), which we can declare a »mission accomplished«.
As said. A quartet with a clear, well-developed musical vision and a platform of experience, channeling that vision into a compact form of thirteen tracks with real musical substance. It’s fair to say that »On Nesebat Pas Dans L’Espoir Du Succés« is one of the more interesting records released this year in Slovenia’s alternative rock underground.
Lineup
Marko Arnold – vocals, guitar
Tomaž Drozg – guitar
Robert Vrtovšek “Maček” – vocals, bass guitar
Tina Jenko – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Srečko Meh – violin
Production
Franci Rainer
Tracklist
1. The Killer
2. Niemals
3. Those Ordinary Days
4. Deliverance
5. Reply All
6. HC Blues
7. Hey Little Mary
8. Silence (Brains in Pain)
9. State of Mind
10. Felt
11. Going Down?
12. As Wolf to Wolf
13. My Personal Recession
