Review Summary: An introduction to balkan melancholy.
Somewhere back in time, in the dark '90s in the Balkans, I lived with the sound of Block Out, a Belgrade dark rock band, talking about cruel experiment called transition. Transition was the name for everything that happened to us in Serbia , Bosnia , Croatia and elsewhere in post communist societies. Poverty , war , corruption, destruction of social tissue and solidarity . Yes we transited to consumer society. Block Out was the loud witness of this times , sane poets of insane times. Their music was the mixture of Nirvana fury , Radiohead sensibility and glimpses into past of Yugoslav independent rock EKV ,Idoli, Elektricni Orgazam. But ther was something Joy Division-esque in the way this band talked about gray times , horreur of war , mediocrity and lack of courage .
25 years later Nikola Vranjkovic who was the guitarist and songwriter of Block Out comes back with double LP called VERONAUTIKA. Almost 15 years of work on this new material is stuffed in hour and half. Album is voyage in the past of all the lost souls of Balkans chaos and madness . But more than this , the great inner journey of a poet , who speaks for all of us (I felt like he is saying the things that we need to hear and want to tell) who left for outer or inner space . The sound is great “melange”of rock at its best dreamy , enthral and sometimes at limit of post punk, Gothic solaire. Nothing is too much in this LP , every sound is in it place. Every tone is invitation into introspection and victory over depression and balkan huzun(deep sweet melancholy), or just imersion into the same huzun.The lyrics are the pure poetry inspired by all that Nikola lived and experinced , hi is a poetic sketch artist of grey world in witch we live …
But also he find a strength and salvation in everyday trivia , in photos where the dead still lives , in a Danube currants , memories.
Like in “The secret life of basement”:
“I went down to the secret life of the basement
Down where the drawers are inhabited by those long gone
Burst of memory, dust from childhood
Poisoned dog, pictures, albums , letters ..
Time numbs out what does not cure
By the way, it kill everything that stands in the way!”
Vranjkovic knows how to tame the inner demons , how to make the perfect alchemy of words and music.
His art is on the peak and every single sound make listener feel pain and pleasure in the same time.
Non serbo-croat listeners should try to enjoy this fine piece of serbian “glad to be sad” music,it could be a fine entry to 40 years of Balkan rock. Discover chef d'oeuvre of melancholy and l poetry.
