Öptüm (2011) - ♪♪♪♪
Sezen Aksu (Turkey)

The cover picture of Sezen Aksu’s latest album, ‘Öptüm’, shows a somewhat bizarre scene: Sezen, platinum blond and in a scarlet-red dress, fronting the musicians on the roof of a tourist bus. In the blue sky, five big fat letters form Sezens first name. The scene is somewhat bizarre, but light and playful at the same time. The picture does represent the album in some respects. The album is definitely light and playful, the musicians have an important role, at some moments it almost sounds like a band. Especially the vocalists who accompany La Aksu on this album turn out to be a strong point.

Most of the songs were written and composed by Sezen herself, ‘Ballı’ (‘Honey sweet’) being the only track she did not compose. The album has been produced by Sezen together with her son Mithat Can Özer. The latter has been also responsible for the creative side of the project. He gathered a team of mostly young musicians (according to the pictures) to record this album. And that turns out to be a very clever move. It all sounds very fresh, inspired, creative and light. The last few albums Sezen has released were certainly not bad, but they all had something heavy and self complacent to them. Not on this latest jewel! The album contains 10 very strong and well-crafted songs. The collection of songs contain festive, up tempo tunes and beautiful, touching ballads. The festive, up-tempo pop songs contain lots of exhilarating percussion, and would have fitted well on her outstanding 2001 album ‘Deliveren’. On many of them the influence of Goran Bregovic can be traced during the refrains.

The center piece of the album is ‘Sayim’ (‘Counting’), a poem by Cemal Süreya set to music. It was not an easy job for Aksu to compose the music to accompany the poem and to sing it, as she explained in an interview: “For twenty five years I have been trying to make a song out of this poem, and I have never been able to. I am still not sure whether I succeeded". Despite her own prudence the result is definitely one of the best ballads Aksu has ever sang. Apart from the beautiful lyrics, the melody is fantastic, the production and arrangements very subtle (guitars, violin, drums and mandolin).

‘Öptüm’ (‘Kissed’):
“We were sitting in the moonlight / I kissed the wrist / Then, standing, kissed / I kissed the lip / I kissed the doorway / I kissed his breath / … / In the end, took off to the streets – Source; / I took her to my house, my bed - Groin... / I took her to my house, my bed / I kissed her groin, I kissed kissed...”

The albums is a pleasure from the first notes of the beautiful opening track ‘Unutun mu beni?’ (‘Forgot about me?’) to the last pounding sounds and beats of ‘Ah felek yordun beni’ (‘Ah fate has given me you’). (And there is also an encore, the acoustic verion of ‘Unutun…’ as a mystery track.) ‘Öptüm’ is our favorite soundtrack for this years summertime (and for many more occasions after that…). Finally, Sezen Aksu delivers a real classic album again!

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Evoluzioni (2011) - ♪♪♪
Bisca (Italy)

Almost celebrating their 30th anniversary Italian band Bisca goes into evolution. Starting of in 1981 as a ska-band they now make alternative rock with a rich sound and poetic lyrics. The developments mentioned in the title are meant: “ in the anthropological sense of a music that finds its reason for being in continuous search for other solutions or if you prefer other solutions to the gray conformity prevailing!”. Or so the press release says. On the opening track Sergio Maglietta and Elio Manzo refer to the close of their best received album from 1996 ‘Lo Sperma del Diavolo’:"It will be because poets often look at the clouds, which are the first to feel the storm". It returns on ‘By my side’ which opens the album with a fast-paced riffs and a catchy chorus.  Evoluzioni is an album that keeps the listener on edge. Sergio T's view on the world of today is at times cold and disillusioned, as in the strong track ‘Folla’, when he sings, "They come to my house and believe that I can insult / enter in my flesh, thinking it is their right," ‘La macchina’, broken on the capitalist world "The car is just a metaphor, to tell you that life is not right”.The first half of the album ends in the sombre ballad ‘Notte’ where the backgroundsingers join in to chant “In this dark night where the moon is not subject tothe stars struggling to put on a display/ Electric night of vivid light and we still hung on” It’s not all somber however, Serio gives us a vision of a new and different world. Like ‘Immagina’, a dub-fuzed track and one of the best songs on album, where the listener is invited to imagine a world where every human being is really part of it. And ‘La lavatrice’ is a happy uptempo ska song. Eventually the album winds down to ‘Il Futuro’, in which a war between past, present and future is put to music. With ‘Evoluzioni’ Bisca proofs that they are ready for another 30 years.

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Carbono Catorce (2011) - ♪♪♪
Yogurinha Borova (Spain)

What is it with Spain? For an alleged machismo culture they have a curious amount of popular androgynous popsingers. A few months back we spotted Victor Lefreak hitting the Spanish charts and while in Bilbao local dragqueen Yogurinha Borova was dominantly present in the FNAC store. Not that Yogurinha is that hard to be missed. Born as Eduardo Gaviña he was one of the leading figures in the cabaret-transvestite group Transtornista: Las Fellini and played a part in the screaming musical parody ‘Feromona Feroz’ (Fierce pheromons). You probably gather where this is going. ‘Carbono Catorce’ is a stomping collection of party tunes that can liven up any party. From ‘Productos Lácteos’ to ‘Enamorzida’ the album thunders 13 tracks long from the speakers like Divine meets Fangoria. We do mention the influence of Alaska and her musical companions here since more and more Iberian acts follow the blueprint they created over the past 25 years. Spanish crude synth-disco with a high fun-level. Which takes us back to Yogurinha who at track 2, ‘Ser actriz’, freely quotes Madonna’s vogue but changes the names of the American icons into Spanish ones name checking Lola Flores, Sarita Montiel, Marisol, Molina and of course Borova her/himself. As with dragqueens there is sometimes a deeper layer behind the wigs, false lashes and make-up. ‘Twist del estado del bienestar ‘(Twist of the welfare state) is a hidden protest against the current crisis. Opener ‘Productos Lácteos’ returns later on the album in Basque as ‘Esnekiak gogoko ditut’. Is this all to be taken serious then? Well, that may be a bit too much credit. But she/he already returns this question on ‘Si que anda mal el panorama musical’ or translated ‘What is wrong with the music scene’. It’s music made for fun. It’s blurting “Paris, Paris / we want to dance in Paris / We are in France / we are drunk / dance avec moi ce soir” as if you take yourself not that seriously as well. Crazy wild electrodisco as it is only made in Spain.  

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Neuro Ritmo (2011) - ♪♪1/2
Joe Crepúsculo (Spain)

Busy ‘Twilight Joe’. Not only does he production work for several young Spanish indie acts and has a steady job as singer and keyboardist in Tarantula. He also finds the time to deliver an album under his own name now and again (his previous one ‘Supercrepus’ was from 2008). This is his new one. Joe’s style for his solo output is more lo-fi with homemade recordings, acoustic instruments and seemingly simple songs. This all sounds a bit uninteresting written down like this. But that is not the case with ‘Neuro Ritmo’. Crepúsculo takes his Spanish musical heritage and starts moulding and tweeking it into a modern lo-fi musical output. Rhythmic elements of samba, bachata, bolero, bossa nova, reggaeton, ranchera and Andean rhythms of cumbia slum can be heard. All played mostly by himself but the crucial percussion on this album comes from his friends Jordi Llobet and Pablo Diaz-Riexa who lace the album with a variety of rhythms and beats, From a simple drum-roll to more elaborate compositions. Together with producer Sergio Perez (guitarist and also member of Contraceptive Thelemáticos) he creates a campfire sing-a-long. Mind you, Joe is not a very gifted singer (luckily he gets help from Luciana Della Villa) so it is the relaxed setting and positive vibe that gives this album the extra. Sympathetic album exclusively for fans of lo-fi europop. 

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Vidimo se (2011) - ♪♪1/2
Darkwood Dub (Serbia)

The Serbian band Darkwood Dub is as far from Jamaican reggae (let alone dub) as you can get. Their music is characterized more by rock and drum & bass music with a mixture of live drumming and electronic percussion, along with frequent use of slide guitar, synthesizers and samplers. The album title ‘See you’ could be hinting to the frantic touring the band did the last two years after being nominated for an MTV award. Although short the new album, it’s actually more a mini-album, features a nice cross section of what the band is capable of. The hypnotic track ‘Dva’ opens the album and with its psychedelic vibe it fits the single, ‘Kraj oktobra’ (‘The End of October’), which preceded the album. But it’s not all dubbed psychedelia. ‘Nesto sasvim izvesno’ ("Something Very Certain"), is a funky disco track with soulfull vocals by famous Serbian jazz singer Bisera Veletanlić. This is also not an entirely new track but was already available as download last April. With ‘Autoput’ and ‘Solarne stanicethe’ the Belgradian dancefloors get a treat with a pumping electrobeats. And if that isn’t enough to wear your dancing shoes the album closes with the remix of "Nesto Sasvim Izvesno" done by Damjan Eltech. But all these different bits and pieces gathered over the past months don’t add up to the feeling that you’re listening to one consistent album. It’s more a compilation of ideas gathered over a period of time. As an introduction to Darkwood Dub’s musical hemisphere it’s a nice start but it actually makes you more eager to listen to other music they made then that it stands on its own accord.

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Tutto cambia (2011) - ♪♪♪♪♪
Teresa De Sio (Italy)

Following the 2007 release ‘Sacco e fuoco’ Neapolitan singer-songwriter toured extensively and published her first novel, ‘Metti il diavolo a ballare’ (‘Putting the devil to dance’). In the winter of 2010 she returned to the recording studio to start working on a brand new album. The result is ‘Tutto cambia’ (‘Everything changes’).

The album opens with the title track, an Italian interpretation of ‘Todo cambio’, from the Chilean composer July Numhauser, who wrote the song after having to leave Chile during the dictatorship in the seventies. (Mercedes Sosa’s interpretation became famous throughout the Southern Amercian continent.) The song conveys images of beautiful emotions in exile helping to cope with change. The song becomes a poem of universal validity, a plead to accept change as something natural, but also to preserve the feelings and deep values, and to expect that what has changed yesterday, will have to change tomorrow.

“But do not ever change my love / even though I'm far away / neither the memory nor the pain / of my country and my people / And that, what has changed yesterday / will change again tomorrow / and if the world around me changes / it is not strange that I change to / everything changes...”

Fabrizio De Andrè’s spirit is also present on the album. De Sio wrote Italian lyrics to ‘Crêuza de Mä’ - now entitled ‘Na strada miezzo o mare’ – originally written by the late singer-songwriter and personal friend of De Sio. The album also contains the song ‘L’amore assoluto’, that De Sio wrote when she was invited by Dori Ghezzi, widow of De Andrè, to perform at the annual concert in Sardinia in honour of De Andrè.

‘Inno nazionale’ (‘National anthem’) is a folk-punk interpretation of a song, originally composed by Luca Carboni. With this song, De Sio expresses her disgust of the social inequality and political polarization within Italy. De Sio explains: “I am a woman of the south and I wanted to see the story of our country rewritten with more equality. I play the ‘National anthem’ scathing and mocking with the deep awareness of the defects of us, Italians. Over the years we have increasingly found each other on opposing sides, divided into provincial regionalism and serving in teams of soccer, political factions, always and inevitably against each other. At the point of forgetting our own immense advantages, our collective strength, in these days more than ever, it is essential to keep awake!”

The highlight of the album is the song ‘Basso Impero’ (‘The Low Empire’), composed and written by De Sio herself, as were most of the songs on the album. In the song De Sio expresses her anger with all the people who see injustices and than just turn their heads. The lawyers, the plastic surgeons, the philosophers, the musicians who just work to maintain the non-critical masses with their empty and idle minds, subjects of the Lower Empire.

‘Tutto cambia’ is a perfect showcase of the unique and adventurous artist Teresa De Sio has become. It contains all states of emotion, from anger and cynicism to acceptance and love of live. The moods swing from melancholic to a raw folk-punk party. With ‘Tutto cambia’ De Sio delivered one of her most personal and creative albums of her career.

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Research & Development (2011) - ♪♪♪
Gorki (Belgium)

Research & Development is the new album by the Flemish rock band Gorki. Edgy and rocky, added with sometimes absurd lyrics it is hard to hold focus in this apparent stumbling album. The album kicks of with ‘Kamikaze’, an up-tempo song starting with a siren-like riff, and thunder-rocking single ‘Ik reis door de nacht’. These are good tracks but somehow the vocals of Luc de Vos are mixed to the background. The effect is that the fierce guitar-work by Thomas Vanelsander takes the lead on the album. His solo on the single is a high flying exercise of guitar powerplay. This is a pity because the absurd lyrics by Luc are worth listening to. Like a bizarre fairytale he tells of riddles with goats, coal and wolves, displays Satan as a merry person which will come for you eventually, about naughty Orca’s and of Sirenes luring men into their trap. It’s an imaginative album where influences of Belgium alternative rock are abounded. This is also the downside of the album. For many international listeners not understanding Flemish the sound of the album may sound a bit too much like something you already heard before. Belgian critics were very positive about the album stating that since their somewhat disappointing previous albums ‘Plan B’ (2004) and ‘Gay Erectus’ (2006) it is a return to form. It is in some way and there are some great tracks on the album such as the orchestral ‘Iedereen plukt de dag’ and anarchistic ‘Eddie Goedzak’ (Eddie Lucky Bastard) about a person who goes from party to party looking down at schoolkids going on with their life. But a return to form…mwah. Nice alternative album, nothing more and nothing less. 

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Frei (2011) - ♪♪♪
LaFee (Germany)

Young Christina Klein aka LaFee started out in 2006 as a sort of girly Tokio Hotel- gothic-teenrock clone. Personally it always felt a bit to marketed and forced. Nonetheless she became wildly popular with her first three albums (not counting the English –translated flop ‘Shut up’ from 2008). As it now seems Christina herself wasn’t that comfortable as well with her created cothic-image. In Bild she explained that she was just a teenager when she began her career and had grown up so fast, without time to think whether she had missed something or not. Apparently, turning 20 she took matters in her own hand, split with her old band and her old manager. Finally, she stated that now she's ready to come back with new songs (she wrote three songs by herself and co-wrote another two) and a more mature look. In short she is ‘Frei’. So it’s out with the rock and in with the electronic influences. Together with Peter Hoffmann and David Bonk she dove into the studio for some modern Rihanna styled popsongs. Together they came up with some top-poptracks like ‘Du allein’ (with those typical German techno bleeps winding around the chorus) and ‘Sonnensystem’. With it’s teuronic chorus and catchy woohoo-refrain it’s a potential summerhit. She explains on single ‘Ich bin’: “I'll take you into my world and I'll show you who I am / Because I love my life / And we share the moment with each and every day see / And put my world into your world”. But the word ‘Rihanna’ already fell. German critics almost collectively doubt the motives of Lafee. Is it not another marketing trick? Is this really who Miss Klein really is? To be honest, I hope so. The gothic – rock did not suit her high voice, she was always a bit to girly for being a genuine rock chick. This kind of music suits her much better. If it is yet another marketing trick at least it’s a convincing one. ‘Frei’ may not have timeless appeal, but for the present it’s a sweet and catchy popalbum.  

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Premìere Phalange (2011) - ♪♪♪
Luce (France)

Leave it to the French that not the hottest girl with the mediocre voice who wins the local TV talent show. In France a girl who dresses in a pink selfmade dress, blue knots in her hair and a mustache drawn on gher face wins the ‘Nouvelle star’ competition in 2010 just by having talent. Perpignan born Luce then took a year to finish her debut album. Mostly recorded in a small studio she wanted the album to reflect her love for cabaret as well as French pop. The first single ‘Eté Noir’ was a first result of that effort with a marching beat, catchy refrains and a haunting guitar riff. The first three songs on the album take the same approach with a cabaresque approach to music on which Luce shows herself a follower of an artist like Clarika. But then, under guidance of Mathieu Boogaerts she switches style on ‘J'me fume’ and ‘Elise’ and turns into lofi dark smoky pop. It’s the first time I actually started listening and the album became interesting. It gets even better when she teams up with urban artist Orelsan for the strong ‘La Machine’ which is a strong electrifying pop track which tastes like more. And you get right that with the Kim Gianni track ‘Happée coulée’ although it is a bit of a copy of sound of Yelle. It doesn’t hold however, halfway she returns to the cabaret style. And how convincing a song like ‘La Symphonie d'Alzheimer’ is, the stylechanges can also be to much. Especially when you bring in the King of zany pop Katerine and the following two tracks go off into stellar madness. Thanks to Orelsan she lands again with the strong ‘Apocalypse’ which stays close to the Katerine weirdness but then the good side. All in all it is not a bad debut album but also not a masterpiece. Now Luce positions herself somewhere between Clarica, Emilie Simon and the lofi movement with Katerine and Boogaerts. This makes you a nice interpretator but not an original artist. To much flavours can be nice but is not always a good thing.  

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Bleu citron (2011) - ♪♪♪
Jeanne Mas (France)

Jeanne Mas entered the French music scene in the early eighties – and never left. She became one of the Frances most popular icons of the era and encountered several highs and lows during her career ever since. In the first decade of this millennium, she recorded a concept album – ‘Les amants de Castille’ - inspired on ‘Le cid’, a work by famous classic dramaturge Pierre Corneille, followed by the techno album ‘The missing flowers’ (and a shameless flood of singles, remixes, re-editions etc.) and finally ‘Be West’, a more rock and pop oriented album, inspired by her stay in the USA. Whatever you may think of La Mas, she does know well how to vary…

This new decade Jeanne Mas starts of with ‘Bleu citron’, an album that sounds familiar in many ways. It seems like La Mas has returned to the sound of the albums she released in the nineties (‘Désir d’insolence’ ‘Au nom des rois’). After all sorts of transformations (blonde, red etc.) she even returned to her nineties-brunette-look!

Jeanne wrote all music and lyrics to the ten new songs. The album was arranged by Polishchuk and Byelash, apparently two Ukrainian artists. ‘Bleu citron’ is certainly a very pleasant album, although not a masterpiece. Personally I am glad that La Mas again does what she does best: write and sing simple, fragile pop songs. And the album contains quite some nice examples of these. It starts of with ‘Petit pas’ (‘Little steps’), on which Jeanne speaks more than sings. Then follows the first single, ‘Les dimanches’ (‘The Sundays’), which is an uplifting, festive song with an appropriate text:

“Hello earth / I'm flying high over / The carburetor fails me / Hello my main moon / just canceled all my syllables / I'm bitching / There is a defect / you is zero / I’m not bad in giving myself on Sundays / For we meet and then we dance.”

Highlights of the album are ‘Un aigle blanc’ (‘A white eagle’), a melodic song about the desire to be free, and ‘Reste’ (‘Stay’), a touching song with nice lyrics:

“Stay for a second, for just a moment / Tell me I still matter to you, despite time / I remain in the silence, I implore you / Nothing and no-one provides this wear.”

Unfortunately the songs sound somewhat unfinished. It almost seems like Jeanne and her two Ukrainian arrangers were in a rush to complete the album. Some songs are being faded out abruptly, the instrumentation is not very inspired, some songs would become better with an extra stanza and refrain. A bit more attention for the details and production would have made it a better album.

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A la croisée des chemins (2011) - ♪♪♪1/2
Sofia Mestari (France)

‘A la croisée des chemins’ (‘At the crossroads’) is Sofia Mestari’s fourth album. Some people may rember her from her performance at the Eurovion Songcontest 2000, where she represented France with the song ‘On aura le ciel’ (‘We will have the sky’). It placed 23rd out of 24 with 5 points, which we will regard as a recommendation… The young Moroccan born Sofia has released three albums since then with not very much commercial success, which is probably the reason why her record label dumped her. Her latest, fourth album has been released on the small label ‘MG Productions’ from Madeu Gonzalez, who worked with Florent Pagny, Renaud, Higelin Faudel etc.

It remains a mystery to me why Mestari’s albums have not yet found a wider audience. She has been blessed with a fantastic deep, soulful voice that resembles Maurane from time to time. Her song material is accessible yet sophisticated. ‘A la croisée…’ is no exception to that rule. Sofia remains loyal to her musical style, so no drastic changes on this latest album. Yet somehow it seems she felt very comfortable with her new label, production team and musicians, since this is definitely her most refined release. The album contains fourteen tracks, ranging from mid-tempo to ballads. Some might call this soft pop, somewhere between Randy Crawford and Celine Dion. At some scarce moments we can recognize some oriental melody or instruments (the title track, ‘Tamara’). I wouldn’t have minded if there were more oriental influences on the album, since these really add something extra to the songs.

The collection of songs is quite fine, with ‘Vole au temps’, ‘Sous la mer’, ‘Tout s’en va’ and the title track as stand out tracks. And we should not forget the closing track ‘Tu me manques’, a duet, written and composed by Jean François Bernardini from Corsican band I Muvrini. ‘A la croisée des chemins’ is a very nice album by a fantastic young singer, who really deserves a breakthrough.

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Roxy (2011) - ♪♪1/2
Oceán (Czech republic)

We rarely review live albums but with the new live album by Czech electropop Group Oceán there is something noteworthy. So here goes. First of all the gig at the Prague Roxy club was special because it was a return to the stage for this notorious band after 20 years. The original Oceán delivered three albums at the start of the Nineties positioning themselves as the Czech answer to Depeche Mode. The band revolved around Petr Muk who started a solocareer in 1994. Last year Petr sadly choked to death in his own vomit after a lethal cocktail of alcohol and medicine. The story goes that Muk already had planned a 20th anniversary tour with the reformed Oceán and Jitka Charvátová (who had a debut solo album ‘Feed my lion’ last year) as back-up female singer. He worked with Jitka before when she was part of Fiction in the Nineties. Fact is that Oceán entered stage in October last year with Jitka doing all the vocals. This was not entirely without controversy. Fans even created a Facebook page under title ‘No Oceán without Petr’. The obvious nerves can be heard in Jitka’s voice when she wrestles through ‘Dávná zem’ (also the opening track from the original debut album) and ‘Brań se touhám’. From culthit ‘Čas’ she reposes herself however giving more and more a convincing performance. Gradually she is also able to identify more with the dark synths and make the songs her own. Reviews in Czech media were mixed. Most praised Jitka’s guts to do the songs and congratulated the band with their performance. But it stays odd to hear the dark vocals suddenly in a new lighter version. Questions were raised why they did not make the choice to change the band’s name and make it easier on themselves. They didn’t and new single ‘Odlesk tvůj’ that closes the album shows that they do not have the intention stop here. A brand new album is planned for 2012. ‘Roxy’ is nice as a document but not as a requiem to Petr. My advice is to buy the original, long out of print, albums that were re-released this year after Petr’s death.

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Materia Obscura (2011) - ♪♪♪
Parade (Spain)

Antonio Galvañ continues his serach for the perfect popsong with this fifth album. The music teacher from Yecla called the album ‘Dark Matter’ but contrary what the title suggests it everything but a gloomy album. Musically that is, because if you listen and translate the lyrics not everything is hunky dory in Antonio’s world. And there are more contradictions on the album. Album opener ‘No mas rocanrol’ is everything but classical music. It’s a hip electro-pop song “No more big bang, no more atoms, no more neutrons”. The friction between science and nature, life and death, love and loneliness is something that is woven through the album. And so ‘Eres un Robot?’ is a song about Parade getting blamed for lacking empathic emotions rather then a hip song about a cute robot “No qualms / inside you / no feeling / no emotion / ¿ You're not human ¿ / ¿ are you made of metal ¿ / I called you my / robot / not having empathy”. More cynical love-songs on the album are called “the man with a bullet in his heart”, “Bela & Boris (a love in reverse)” and “La Muerte Enamorada”. Luckily it’s not all depression in the lyrics. On two songs Galvañ works with his fascination of space and so ‘Transplutionia’ is a hip trip to Mars while ‘El Viajero Del Tiempo’ is a nice ballad about a traveller of time. As said, musically ‘Materia Obscura’ is much more uplifting then the titles and lyrics suggest. With bandmembers (and brother) Jesus Galvañ and Eva Plaza on background vocals, Dani Cardona (drums) and Eduardo Piqueras (guitar) he creates an easy and pleasant pop sound. His inspirations are David Bowie and the Mama’s & the Papa’s and those are obvious. But he manages to squeeze in enough Spanish elements to make it stand out on the originality scale.

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8 (2011) - ♪♪♪♪
Tata Bojs (Czech republic)

It’s the eight album of Czech combo Tata Bojs. But what if you turn the 8 symbol a quarter? You’ll get the universal sign for infinity and endless repetition. And that is exactly the question the band asks itself on opening track ‘Progresivni’: “We won’t repeat ourselves and will not be repeated”. This new album is all about progress and moving forward without losing track of where you came from, you might turn back there in the end. Because it’s only human that history will teach us nothing but to repeat ourselves over and over. Strong track ‘Opakováni’ is all about repetition with a loop that is constantly recurring like a millstream. “ I'm here again / I was there the second time / is another / better than the first time / This fact has to be or appearance / this is recycling / repetition, repetition, repetition ... “.  The album has a somewhat futuristic theme with the band the glimpsing at the world over twenty years on ‘2031’. They expect it to be something between Orwell and Zoolander. Then there is a totalitarian society ruled by fascists and makeup artists. Is the future a world where you can trust anyone. On ‘Světová’ Milan asks himself “Apocalyptic vision / it does not sound so strange /the world is a place you will end / A bowl to collect only tears, little girl”. Meanwhile the band wraps its dark message of repetition and inevitable political mistakes in a hip and fresh alternative pop-rock mould that sounds more positive and upbeat then down. Life can be a film (Filmařská) in which you feel like living at 25 frames a second. But what a good soundtrack to accompany it with. Life can be like dark chocolate (‘Hořká čokoláda’), bitter and sweet at the same time. Just like this album. But is men just not an experiment for the next version? Aren’t we a demo-version of a next stage? That’s the question that closes the album and with which the guys leave us before returning to the starting point. With ‘8’ Tata Bojs delivered a concept album without getting all rock musical. Never losing touch with the central theme they come up with a great album that should withstand the test of time…or does it? Yes, for now.

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Mapas (2011) -♪♪♪♪♪
Vetusta Morla (Spain)

Talk about a leap forward. Compared to their debut ‘Un dia en el mondo’ Madrilène indie-band Vetusta Morla surely made one with their second album. The band, named after the turtle of the Neverending story, toured heavily the past two years and doing so created a more natural synergy between the band-members. The band wanted to recreate the live vibe in studio with the entire band being present at the same time. They wanted to prioritize the excitement and energy of the live experience over technical perfection, to prefer the natural and organic before the surgical cleanliness Opening track ‘Los días raros’ is exemplary for the treat you’re into when you put this disc in your CD player. Starting of with a simple melody, a slow piano and Pucho on vocals the song envelops itself into a weaving carpet where communal vocals and guitars melt into each other pushed by the excellent drumwork of David "el Indio". The central theme of the album is not a real map but more the time lines you leave during your lifetime, traces of our achievements and failures, collections of medals and scratches. The theme is translated by Guillermo Galván into poetic lyrics like on the opening song: “It's here, who saw / Dance like a loop on a ventilator / Who would say that without erasure / No deal / The future is dressed / With the emperor's new clothes / Who would say that without coal / No wise men / We still have many more / Gifts for open / Coins to rotate / Discover a profile / And start the cellophane / and ends with an echo.” But the album features more highlights while you continue your sonic journey along the twelve songs. ‘Boca en la tierra’, ‘El hombre del saco’, ‘Escudo humano’ and the almost psychedelic titlesong are all high quality stuff. Actually one of the ‘weakest’ tracks is single ‘En el río’ that sounds like it was a left over from the previous album. It’s like the sound of My Morning Jacket and Midlake has been taken unto the Spanish plains and reworked, with this as the result. At the end of the album, on ‘Mi suerte’, Pucho lays the decision with the listener: “I propose to deal the cards that I brought here / Now it's up to her to decide”. If you buy one Europop indie album this season, let it be this one.

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