Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Elvis Jackson
Label: Self-released
Release: 2014
Runtime: 25:15
Rating: 4/5
Elvis Jackson are yet another band that couldn’t care less about what’s going on around them. In the sense of creative freedom, that is! A band that knows how to honestly enjoy music, and that gets that the heart of any success story is fully surrendering to the magic of the musical universe, which has to grow spontaneously, with no forcing. Sure, the band put out their last studio album, an excellent one at that, »Against The Gravity« back in the »ancient« year of 2009, yet they’ve been packing stages the whole time. Very successfully. At home and abroad! And new material is in the works. Or old material is being finished off. Depends on which angle you look at it from.
So the band is forging a new album, due out this year! A good year ago they already teased it with the single and video for the song Window. It’s a track that continues the search for organically juicy sonic rhetoric, full of warmth and dynamic flexibility, and in that way plugs right back into what the band signaled loud and clear with »Against The Gravitiy. The direction? A search for melodic catchiness and accessibility for a wider circle of listeners. You could call it easygoing rock, or even art pop. It carries a pleasant, warm, organic, funked-up groove, while Buda’s vocals are the one (distant) link to the older musical approach of hot-blooded punk rock. But that feeling comes through only in the background.
Window is an incredibly strong track, so it makes sense that the EP is named after it. After its strongest song. The EP’s novelty, I Believe…, is a notch more cheerful and carefree, you could even say happy-go-lucky. It’s positive and wake-up-call material again. The positivity of faith in love has been the band’s guiding light since forever. And this time Elvis Jackson felt it was time to say it out loud too! With a solidly defined reggae beat, this song follows the sonic and production approach, as well as the compositional orientation, of Window. Since EPs are usually a bundle of special musical »candies« you »have to« have, the band tacked on an extremely interesting Fear Off in a »stripped-down« arrangement, plus two live versions: Morning, sped up in a SKA spirit, and the melancholy, gazing-into-the-distance reggae »lament« This Time. Those last two build a genuine bridge for the collision of character between the old and new Elvis Jackson, while underlining the band’s tremendous performing power and cohesion every time they step on stage. That Elvis Jackson are one of the strongest stage-performing »live« attractions hardly needs saying. It’s a fact that has held for years.
And for the connoisseurs who want more, the EP also adds an excellent cover of R.E.M.’s evergreen Loosing My Religion, created as part of a project by the American embassy in Slovenia. The song is masterfully »flipped« in such a way that you feel like it’s an original by the band. It carries a perfect collision of modern-day sophistication (the verse) and the »fired-up« noisiness of the chorus, and above all, the all-important dot on the »i« comes from Buda’s great vocal interpretation, which lays down some outstanding solutions in shaping the melody (especially in the verse lines), so that the version in Elvis Jackson’s hands gains a real juiciness of the band’s typical virtue of originality in their musical dossier! Right at the very tail end of the EP sits a seriously playful and fun remix of the song Window.
The EP lands at just the right time. With a string of important live shows lined up ahead for the band. »Window« will of course grace the Elvis Jackson merch tables at those very gigs, and at a »pocket-friendly handful of euros« it’ll have no trouble reaching the band’s most loyal fans. Don’t worry! Elvis Jackson are definitely cooking up an album unlike anything they’ve released to date. Playfulness, lucidity and great cheerfulness remain the band’s middle name. So the EP comes as if ordered. With it, Elvis Jackson have signaled that they’re creatively on the move and that they mean their promises. Serve this EP up like a hot, crispy bread roll and let it sweeten your spring and summer until fall rolls around, when Elvis Jackson treat you to a brand-new studio album!
Lineup
David Kovšca (Buda) – vocals
Boštjan Beltram (Berto) – guitar
Erik Makuc (Slavc) – bass guitar
Marko Soršak (Soki) – drums
Production
Elvis Jackson
Tracklist
1. Window
2. I Believe…
3. Fear Off (unplugged)
4. Loosing My Religion
5. Morning (live)
6. This Time (live)
7. Window JAMirko (remix)
