Artist: Pop Design
Label: Menart Records
Release: 2010
Rating: 4/5
“Pop Design from head to toe” is how we can sum up the band’s new release, just to save the fans some time reading this review. The album, tersely and punchily titled “Petindvajset”, was a long time in the making. A bit too long, really. And yet Tone Košmrlj and the gang haven’t forgotten how to pull on their proper “sharply tailored rocker outfit” and head off (at least once more, if not for the last time) into the entertainment world of rock n’ roll.
Pop Design made their name a long time ago and count as one of the most successful Slovenian bands, one that actually made real money in pop rock by hammering out evergreen hits! Those songs still live on in the hearts of the band’s fans and of everyone who spent their teenage years in the eighties. The proof came at the concert celebrating the release of “Petindvajset” on September 17, 2010, when almost 2,000 heads packed Križanke despite a monstrous downpour that, within a few days, sent Slovenia into a genuine state of alarm. Pop Design also carry real weight, because when they showed up on the scene they were one of the first role models for how to go about building up the stature and voice of an individual band. They always took care of a polished look and a professional approach, which left the band’s actions with an even stronger mark on the scene. Like it or not, you can’t close your eyes to that.
On top of all that, Pop Design are also known as the eternally sweetest Slovenian rock offshoot, the ones who shaped the face of mainstream-oriented pop music in the carefree eighties. And they haven’t changed the basic guidelines of their musical vision. Where they ended the story, they’ve extended it for the new album too, in line with the jargon of their earlier work. Only for completely different times. That’s why “Petindvajset” feels like an album lost in time. There’s no point anymore in hunting for which song some motif in the new tracks reminds you of, because running into an album like this today, in terms of style, sound and production, is a proper mini shock therapy. A surviving dinosaur that, with its relic-like look and content, somehow draws plenty of attention and interest all by itself.
The songs stay classically built, in the style of two verses and two choruses, a middle instrumental section and a closing chorus. Chiseled eighties pop rhetoric, in other words. Despite the trembling lyrics, the arrows shot at all the wrong targets and the bleeding hearts, you can always feel a veil of optimistic looking toward a bright future in the background. The guessing game of whether the verses once again lean on the relationship of the “strictly confidential” battle of the sexes is a special masterpiece of Pop Design, and it’s fully satisfied this time around too. The guys go at things head-on, frontally and with no holding back. So don’t go looking for any heavily metaphor-spiced flourishes in the poetry.
The music? Chiseled Pop Design-style. Still, for all the sugar sprinkling, the guys have cranked up the guitars sharply in the sound this time, which makes “Petindvajset” the heaviest album of Pop Design’s career. Having two guitar masters like Bor Zuljan (ex-Šank Rock) and Grega Samar (Nočna ptica) on the team is no joke, and it shows thoroughly above all in the transitional decorative parts linking the verses and choruses, and in the added embellishments that enrich the basic riff lines. You feel it most directly in the middle instrumental sections, when the guitars get devilishly crunchy. Zuljan triumphs especially with a subtle, tenderly yearning solo in the standout Zate živim, where he creates a completely new mood. So all three guitarists (this remark matters mainly because of Zuljan’s guitar character), following the orders of boss Košmrlj, make sure they don’t get lost in a sea of notes. Their solos are refined and unpretentious, the placement of notes and tones is well thought out and carries a red thread, adding to the compactness of the songs themselves and deepening their core message at the same time. That’s the Pop Design stance, then. And the opening Srce iz črepinj tells you instantly that the guys have pulled the rock reins tighter than ever before.
Miran Rudan has “survived”. If not Vili Resnik, then Miran Rudan (and of course vice versa). Only one or the other is an option for Pop Design. Good thing Košmrlj knows it, and good thing Rudan isn’t as hungry for money as Vili, otherwise we’d be witnessing exotica of questionable taste. In the spot of today’s Pop Design vocalist, Rudan has kept his voice untouched. More than that. He’s matured like fine wine. That signature tone with a veil of vibrato, a polished, decidedly confident and self-assured approach, an authoritative stance that provides the plasma of melodicness and the typical Pop Design flirtatiousness (especially toward the female listeners, that is).
“Petindvajset” brings Pop Design to the scene just as we’ve always known them. This is where they’re most recognizable and strongest. It’s an approach to rock containing so much retro pop cosmetics of Slovenian mainstream music that even today it simply unites under one roof a whole range of fans of Slovenian pop, from those who listen to Šank Rock at one end of the spectrum to the unshakable brush saleswoman Helena Blagne at the other.
Picking the finest of the perfect love “tearjerkers” is a tough job this time too. The stronger ones are Srce iz črepinj, Zate živim, O ljubezni in sreči, Vihar, and then Dum Dum Dum right before the end of the album, a composition that’s among its more impressive creations. The intense closing of the album, full of yearning melancholy with the song Pika na i, also stands out, with Rudan nailing it especially convincingly, since it’s more than tailor-made for him.
The new album from the legendary Slovenian band will make every fan of the group happy. Despite its proverbial predictability and general musical accessibility, it doesn’t hide the fact that Pop Design have matured, since the compositions are delicately seasoned, in terms of arrangement and production, with decorative touches of filigree that only rich studio mileage and plenty of experience can bring. “Petindvajset” is therefore an album that can boast a gorgeous pop rock leveler, a set of twelve new original songs (the thirteenth being the re-arranged classic Zate Slovenija) of polished compactness and infectious melodies, and, most importantly: with it, Pop Design remain the undisputed kings of Slovenian pop rock culture of the late romanticism of the second half of the eighties.
Lineup
Miran Rudan – vocals
Damjan Kuzminjak – guitar
Tomo Pavlin – keyboards
Tone Košmrlj – bass guitar
Damjan Tomažin – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Bor Zuljan – guitar (tracks 1, 2, 3 and 9)
Grega Samar – guitar (tracks 4,5,6,7,8 and 12)
Jan Marinšek – guitar (tracks 10, 11 and 13)
Andreja Čamernik – backing vocals
Sašo Balant – backing vocals
Production
Tone Košmrlj & Miran Rudan
Track list
1. Srce iz črepinj
2. Zate živim
3. O ljubezni in o sreči
4. Vihar
5. Ljubim te (ni le beseda)
6. Ostani moja, ne odhajaj
7. Pepelka
8. Ne joči
9. S sabo se borim
10. Poletje v tebi
11. Dum, dum, dum
12. Zate Slovenija
13. Pika na i
