Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: San Di Ego
Label: Dallas Records
Release: 2014
Duration: 39:17
Rating: 3.5/5
Upbeat, cheeky, tongue-in-cheek records that keep hunting for a reason to party are bloody scarce more often than not. That is, until the rockers wake up and crawl out of their dens. The new rock supergroup San Di Ego traces its roots to the turbulence that swept over Requiem in August 2012. That’s when vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer Sergej Škofljanec and bassist Martin Rozman were suddenly left without a band. Rozman’s Byllisi bandmate Matic Ajdič, meanwhile, had been showing a serious appetite for playing hard rock standards with C4, who thoroughly packed Orto bar every third Thursday of the month. Time had clearly ripened for the trio to join forces and drag the excellent drummer Jure Doles into the mix too! And so San Di Ego were born.
Four charismatic rock heavyweights with unsuspected musical talents and virtues, loaded with experience and the rich musical mileage they’ve racked up on the road to San Di Ego, are delivering to the scene a studio debut in the form of a typically formatted hard rock album, the kind characteristic of the geographic region on the sunny side of the Alps. Even a deaf person would recognize that typicality in a heartbeat.
Already on the first, fleeting spin of the album it’s clear that the band knows exactly what it’s doing with its arrangements. They draw on plenty of experience and refined vigilance, and Sergej Škofljanec’s touch in shaping and formatting the arrangements is of course plainly noticeable across the whole album. There’s no getting around the translating, or repackaging, of certain recognizable melodic-rhythmic figures of pioneering hard rock value, which were laid down long ago by the great idols of the San Di Ego members, such as Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Whitesnake, Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, and Lynyrd Skynyrd too. These sparks of creative inspiration are woven into the framework of the songs in a way you can’t accuse of “ripping off” — instead they take just the right doses and brilliantly translate them into a language called “San Di Ego rock’n’roll”. Fans of Šank rock, Wellblott, Chateau, Mary Rose, and Requiem from the era of the albums »Zadnja molitev« and »Fallen Angel« will definitely prick up their ears when they meet this record. The musicality, the sentiment and, as a result, the very atmosphere typical of this kind of album made on Slovenian soil carry across the decades to San Di Ego’s debut too, so it makes sense to draw family ties to the short-lived brilliance of Rdeči baron, the band that was a big deal on our turf in the second half of the eighties.
Lyrically, San Di Ego are direct and don’t mince words. More than that, even. A few songs are socially critical and engaged, like the opener Izbrisani and the closer Zadnji cent, which carries one of the most impressive choruses on the album, with a mild family resemblance to the riff philosophy of European hard rock bands a la Gotthard. Otherwise, though, the San Di Ego story is mostly playful, optimistic, wryly lucid, and erotically teasing too. Just as befits the stripped-down rock ‘n’ roll recipe of the band. The juiciness of the hedonistic confessions peaks in the bluesrock waltz Pompin, with the cheekily needling rocker Domina right on its heels. The chorus of Sonce je tam, kjer si ti, and really the whole development of the song, is easy to connect to the songwriting of later Uriah Heep, especially in the era of the albums »Sea Of Light« and »Sonic Origami«, while the band didn’t forget to create atmospheric contrast between Sergej’s basic vocal approach and extra vocal harmonies. There’s no getting around the wonderfully successful cover of the Bee Gees classic Stayin’ Alive, which is a highlight of »San Di Ego« all by itself. In this very song Sergej Škofljanec, with his phenomenal performance, confirms that he’s one of the best Slovenian hard rock and heavy metal vocalists right now.
Given the renown and reputation of the quartet’s individual members, San Di Ego have recorded the hard rock album you’d expect, forged from a standard recipe, the kind such a situation breathes out given the geographic stamp of living on the sunny side of the Alps. It’s a solid, carefully measured and good-looking hard rock record that brings no “excesses” of experimentation, but deftly recycles and translates the form of hard rock’s pioneers into its own musical dossier. Most of its expressive attention goes to chasing melodic compactness and exposing the greedy adrenaline rush of the rock’n’roll principle. “All in one” sums it up: “San Di Ego” is a quality Slovenian hard rock album.
Lineup
Sergej Škofljanec – vocals, acoustic guitar
Matic Ajdič – guitar, backing vocals
Martin Rozman – bass guitar, backing vocals
Jure Doles – drums
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Matej Zalar – backing vocals
Aleš Klinar – backing vocals
Tadej Vasle – backing vocals
Vojo Djuran – backing vocals
Production
Sergej Škofljanec
Tracklist
1. Izbrisani
2. Sonce je tam kjer si ti
3. To je to (za ta denar)
4. “Copata”
5. Stayin’ Alive
6. Pompin
7. Domina
8. Od nebes do pekla (in nazaj)
9. Naš šef
10. Zadnji cent
