Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Zmelkoow
Label: KUD Napačen Planet
Release: 2016
Length: 41:11
Rating: 3.5/5
Zmelkoow have always had to be taken as a kind of highly astute and intelligent (self-)parody, one that, in the eyes of anyone who doesn’t get it right away, does the band more harm than good. So the band does this consciously, aware that with Butale-grade smarts around, it might also cause some long-term damage. They’ve lived through that and become completely immune to it. An ironic realization, but still. That’s actually, to a degree, the whole point of their original provocativeness, which on the whole only makes Zmelkoow stronger and just keeps cementing the egos of the band members.
Even as you listen to the new album, it’s clear that behind it stand musicians loaded with rich experience, collected over a career span of (more than) two solid decades of making music, and who could have come up with (for listening purposes) far more interesting compositions than the ones this album offers. And yet, thanks to the band’s past stature and voice, which has always delivered plenty of tangible »bread and circuses«, Zmelkoow once again diligently stick to the proven, effective recipe of their own authorial vision, the one that over the years made the band’s name broadly penetrating in Slovenia (we all know Zmelkoow, after all). That’s where Zmelkoow feel best, because that’s simply who they are, and there’s no way to be otherwise.
»Pionirji divergentnega marketinga« is an album of parody from head to toe. It’s notably shorter than its predecessor »Čista jajca?« (2009) – which, by the way, got a »complete fiasco« verdict from our reviewers and so Zmelkoow are (again) much more effective in how they address you. In mocking themselves once more, mocking others, they hold up a mirror with a reflection you don’t want to get used to, and yet a reflection that, in its self-irony, ends up more real than you’d ever dare imagine. Over the years Zmelkoow have become great masters of this craft. Hardly anyone comes close, or is even just comparable in Slovenian rock history, since they stir up such feelings in the listener in their own special way (Buldožer, Marko Brecelj, Nula Kelvina, Same Babe, NLP,…). Imagine Zmelkoow’s potential to become in Slovenia what Erste Algemeine Verunsicherung became in the German-speaking lands, except that to become universally beloved by Slovenes, Zmelkoow would have to get considerably more hick-ish, which (luckily) hasn’t happened yet (good morning, Agropop). Also in the astute vocabulary of bold and black poetic rhetoric about “the glitz and misery of depravity”, which spreads across the territorial integrity of our country and “the exceptional and unsurpassed development of human civilization”, Zmelkoow keep their daring and their greatest appeal.
The band has put together twelve tracks (ten would have done – two of them are covers of originals), recorded over the last seven years in different locations, with different producers. Opportunistic, but still. It’s that typical Slovenian self-preservation instinct, when we’re talking about a true rocker! On the principle of “figure it out yourself, however you can” (or become Tanja Žagar). In that sense the album is charmingly divergent genre-wise, and Zmelkoow, analytically speaking, keep their own highly intellectual hygienic fraction of unruly alt-rock attitude. In performing the new material, the band again must not sound flawless. So Goga stays annoyingly hard-going and a demandingly caustic grump, the instruments have to sound divergent, the odd botched note is sometimes even dictated. All of it keeps the band’s recognizable charisma intact, and with Zmelkoow you get the feeling that anything goes. Absolutely anything.
Zmelkoow come at you with humor that only the generation the band belongs to really gets. In that respect it’s a frightening realization that this generation, band included, is closing out the era of rock’n’roll. The humor on the new album doesn’t bridge generational gaps either, and stays close only to listeners from their mid-thirties up.
Zmelkoow remain musically banal, almost bizarrely banal. They follow a sacred simplicity, deftly steering between plenty of genre challenges. Elements of reggae/SKA, funk, blues, cabaret chanson, are once again skillfully woven into the starting energy of a punk rock’n’roll attitude, which sometimes ends up lovably disguised among those elements. At times the tracks run too long (opener Mama koka, closing rascal Pesnik v elementu), where you can feel that a pinch of self-control in establishing a common thread would have helped. Not even the modern-day Pero Lovšin would object to the template of Pussy revolucija. But I won’t ramble. Zmelkoow return to the core language of sacred-confessional simplicity, which is what the band’s audience is used to and which, compared with the experimenting on the predecessor, also suits their (well-known) expression better.
Zmelkoow – Mama koka (official video):
Lineup
Goga Sedmak – vocals, guitar
Žare Pavletič – bass guitar
Aleš Koščak – drums
Anuša Podgornik – flute, keyboards, backing vocals
Iztok Cergol – accordion, saxophone, violin, mandolin
Aleksandra Čermelj – vocals on track no. 11
Eva Brajkovič – vocals on track no. 11
Rok Škarabot – percussion on track no. 8
Production
Andrea Flego, Gaber Radojević, Jan Baruca, Mitja Cerkvenik & Samuel Simonović
Tracklist
1. Mama koka (4:14)
2. Polna Luna (3:08)
3. Zlata ribica (2:53)
4. Čik pavza in mala potreba (ogledalo) (3:05)
5. Nočem bit DJ (3:47)
6. Pussy revolucija (2:47)
7. Kaj nam fali? (3:22)
8. Konec sveta (3:10)
9. Resnica o titaniku (3:14)
10. Dandanes (3:24)
11. Zavese plešejo (3:36)
12. Pesnik v elementu (4:45)
