ODLIVENO

After disastrous and poorly received album "Smak 86", the band stopped their activities and only occasionally continued to play at traditional May midnight concerts in their home town Kragujevac, Serbia. After such a concert in May 1992 SMAK gathered again in their most celebrated line-up, with Lazo Ristovski back on keyboards. Without major ambitions they played several gigs, mostly in Belgrade and one of these, the June 1992 concert in "Sava centar", was taped for this live album.

It was released on cassette format only, under the wordplay title "odLIVEno" - meaning "moulded" or "cast" (as suggested by the cover art of an embossment) with capital letters forming English "live"! This is a solid concert album and the last "classic" SMAK sound due to the old members' team playing here. It is however not very prog- oriented but rather reflects their heavy-blues roots.

There are two covers of blues standards, "Crossroads" and "Tobacco Road" where Tocak shows that he always was a confident disciple of Jimi Hendrix. "Daire" and "Crna dama" are offered in somewhat slower versions, while in the instrumentals "Ulazak u harem", "Strasilo" and traditional "Ukor" Radomir Mihajlovic Tocak proves his guitar- virtuoso abilities. He was indeed one of the best guitarists in the former Yugoslavia, and while not always a successful composer or arranger, much less a songwriter, he was a devout musician and passionate instrumentalist, which anyone must admire even if you are not fan of SMAK. Boris Arandjelovic added his confident but imperfect vocal performance with genuine emotions. Two nice early blues ballads from "Satelit" EP, "Sumadijski Blues" and "El Dumo" are also present, so it is close to a "live greatest hits" collection that can be recommended to casual listeners as well as to dedicated SMAK collectors.

Nothing revolutionary or groundbreaking is present on "odLIVEno", but it is a valued testimony of SMAK live abilities and perhaps the last of their issues that an average prog fan should care about.