Label: Giljotina Records
Release date: 02.02.2018
Album length: 20.32
Production: Real Life Version
Genre: Alternative Rock / Crossover
For thirteen years now, Real Life Version have been fighting it out across the wide open fields of the underground in the Vipava Valley. They defy and they bite. They keep the stubbornness, the fire and the heart. With their years of activity, the band stands as a rocky massif of the new alternative rock movement around Ajdovščina. The members are tightly connected with the other bands from the area, who don’t really notice genre boundaries, let alone acknowledge them. So in this respect, (surprisingly) harmony reigns in that corner of Slovenia.
Sure, you could say Real Life Version are a very fashionably complete musical story of punk rock with mild touches of HC, but the second thought that comes to mind is that the world is crawling with bands like that. Still, Real Life Version manage to be a little bit their own thing. Ajdovščina-their-own, if you get me? They’ve got their own musical dossier, which they now deepen and nurture with the new album “Furious Winds And Ice Cold Showers”. It’s not just an extremely fast assault built on three-to-four-chord combos and punchy, simple riffs. The band dares to step over those thresholds and stuffs in a pretty hefty bundle of complex transitions and passages, and the title track delivers a special surprise on the album, totally untypical for the genre. In the period before the music for this album was written, the band had to get through a turbulent stretch, hence the chosen album title, and you could more or less pick the title track as the core of the band’s statement about that turbulent time. The folks from Ajdovščina are used to the bora wind, after all.
The band handles the production themselves, and it’s extremely good. Warm, organic, alive and dynamic, with a sonic landscape filled in very skillfully. The low end gives the bold riffs and the rhythmic texture a proper springboard. Melodies are plentiful, and the vocals are mostly “clean” too, meaning melodic. The band deftly fills the space between the vocal lines with extra vocals or “shouts”, often the lead vocal is surrounded by additional vocal harmony, and often cleverly masked with extra effects too, which adds extra articulation to the songs and stirs up the moods. That brings waves of mood and atmosphere.
The second thing that makes the Real Life Version story so confident is their technical polish. Everything they take on is extremely refined and well thought out. Even though it all sounds trivial and simple to the ear, the guys spent a lot of time polishing the tracks into their final versions. The transitions, the decorative extras of guitar harmonies (including a “Maiden” harmony in Rise And Shine). The band takes care of expressive aesthetics, especially when it comes to rhythmic kinetics. Real Life Version are particularly strong rhythmically. You can feel it in the delivery of the exceptionally lively bass lines, which communicate clearly and as equals with the other instruments in the production. Real Life Version would rather slip in some “badass” rhythmic transition or a transitional “break” than get tangled up in complex “torturing” of the instruments. There’s no room for overcomplicating things, the band gets to the point right away and disarms fans of this kind of music with the incredible energy they radiate in their playing and commitment. Real Life Version carry an extremely convincing punch and expressive vehemence. They’re by no means short on authenticity.
As far as instant catchiness goes, they really nailed it with Rise And Shine. In that respect, it’s the best of the bunch. A song made for a commercial jingle! This track is perfect for opening a gig or an album, and yet Real Life Version chose to open with Tea Party Revolution, which is a rhythmically more complex track in particular, signaling right from the start that this is not just another stereotypical new-generation punk rock band. The other extremely likable assault is the closing Chainbreaker, where a harmonized vocal line grabs your attention, and in the finish it delivers one more punk rock detonation, in which the otherwise mostly “party-spirited” Real Life Version shake out a nice helping of sharpness, anger and jaggedness.
Real Lfie Version is a band that absolutely has to make some noise abroad. Absolutely. The new album drives that home once again. If an Offspring ever swings through here, we know who the opener will be. You’d love to see them live. Real Life Version, that is. Maybe they’re even playing before NOFX on 21.06.2018 in Ljubljana? Who knows.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 9.0 / 10
Tracklist:
1. Tea Party Revolution (02:40)
2. Rise and Shine (02:30)
3. Challenging Ghost (03:32)
4. Furious Winds and Ice Cold Showers (05:12)
5. Wall of Fame 6 o’clock (03:38)
6. Chainbreaker (02:30)
Lineup:
Jani Jež – guitar, vocals
Aljoša Todorovič – guitar
Jani Peljhan – bass guitar, vocals
Nejc Franca – drums, voka
