PLJUNI ISTINI U OCI

BULDOZER's debut album was among the most revolutionary works of popular music issued in the former Yugoslavia. It came out in 1975 just to be withdrawn from the market shortly thereupon. It was so outrageous that PGP label refused to print more copies after the first circulation was quickly sold out.

The avant-garde nature of its expression is best detected from the lyrics, which are unfortunately not easy to translate into English. The title means roughly "Let's Face the Truth", while the cover sleeve is designed as a magazine page, in the vein similar to JETHRO TULL's "Aqualung", full of black humor, semi-pornographic strip- cartoons and ridiculous sarcastic "articles". The opening miniature "Najpogodnije mjesto" ("The Best Place") is Brecelj's lamentation "I am sorry sir, but I am not from this town, so I would like to know where is it here, ahem... the best place to commit suicide", backed by psyche bottleneck blues guitar. "Zivot to je feferon" ("Life Is But A Chili Pepper") is a highlight of psychedelic avant-prog, with strong Hammond, excellent guitar solo by Lovsin and vocal craziness of Brecelj. It is followed by equally stunning and slightly more aggressive masterpiece "Sto to radis, Buldozeru jedan" ("You Buldozer, What Are You Doing"), carrying a freaky story of a negligent character called Buldozer who ate a beef soup including cooked meat, just to face the revenge of a bull who complained "what are you doing?/you have been eating my mama!" What to say? - I mean, you have to be either a bit deranged or a pure genius to put such stuff onto a rock album!!! "Blues gnjus" is, believe it or not, a wonderfully played straight blues composition with -hmmm- not so straight lyrics. The Brecelj character here is an animal lover so that he welcomes all sorts of germs and bacteria into his head and body, where there is "enough blood for all of you, my dear beasties..." At the end, he cannot stand anymore and starts vomiting out into a toilet flusher... pure disgust! "Ljubav na prvi krevet" ("Love At First Bed") and "Yes My Baby, No" are two hilarious mockery of love and romance that it brings laugh to tears, with lyrical acrobatics and wordplay that is sadly restricted almost to South-Slav speaking people only.

The timeless nature of this unique album is best proved when, at the peak of New Wave explosion in 1981 in ExYU, the reissued "Pljuni istini u oci" this time by Helidon label, was again warmly received not only by the (punk and new wave) fans but also by critics and even general pop consumers. To my knowledge, this kind of freaky satire and humor can be found only in Frank Zappa's famous works of the mid-1970s. This album is a must for every respected prog collector!

Buldozer's debut is a brilliant one. At the moments, the music an the attitude was outrageous. Well, the music itself doesn't sound so revolutionary (psych rock with occasional Floydian moments, later incorporating new wave), but the lyrics (and the overall attitude of the band) were sometimes shocking, sometimes funny, most of the time both. Really it's a pity it will remain obscure for a worldwide audience because of the language barrier. I can't describe enough how the lyrics "Oh woe is me! Ouch! Don't! Ow!" sounded for the first time when I heard them - a cry of a man who got beaten up by a bull, because he was eating a soup mad of bull's mother. There are not many lyrics around about somebody's mother being eaten.

Neither are many record sounds of vomiting into the toilet seat. Or the lyrics how one "doesn't want to be paraplegic". This album is brutal.

And guess what; music is not bad neither: standard good old rock combo, guitar, bass, drums, Hammond organ, the first and the last one mentioned great at that.

I'm sure this record will lose a majority of its appeal if you don't understand the language, and it's questionable will the music be enough to preserve your attention. The music is, as I said, excellent, but it works in an amalgam with the story. However, I won't lower my rating of this extraordinary debut.

Debut album from Slovenian band Buldozer is easy and difficult one for reviewer. It is one of these works, when you need to be domestic, or at least to know the place and time where this work was recorded very well. In other case you're missing bigger part of this album ( or even almost all).

And the one can easily find confirmation of my above sentences right here, between other this album reviews. Any reviewer of ex-Yugoslavian origin, with language understanding, valuated this album very high , but always mentioned, that to catch it you need to understand lyrics. And almost all foreigners found just simplistic, blues rock rooted early proto- avant rock there.

My situation is quite unique, because I am foreigner with good understanding of Serbo-Croatian (happily for me this Slovenian band's album is sung on this language, not on their native Slovenian). And even more - I spent almost three years of my life living all around former Yugoslavia, so perfectly understand local (very specific) cultural atmosphere.

So - my vision from position as above: absolutely great album if you know language and (it is important, believe me) that Balkan/Adriatic Slavic way of thinking. All the album is full of domestic folklore humour, which is almost impossible to translate.

Easiest way to imagine what I am speaking about is just to compare this work with great ex-Yugoslavian film director Emir Kusturica works. Just remove from its such important ingredient as Balkan Gypsy culture, and add some European early underground rock element instead.

If you don't know nothing about Kusturica and his movies, than ... imagine early Zappa works, transferred to hot, a bit lazy and very colourful land of South-Eastern Europe.

To be honest, I don't believe someone without language and that culture knowledge could be strongly attracted by this work. But - whenever it is avant-prog, everything is possible. Usually fans of that genre are prepared for very unexpected things . So - try, who knows, may be you will find the way to get what is there under the skin of this album's sound. My evaluation is made from the position of listener, who caught this album's music in full.

BULDOZER were a six piece band from the former Yugoslavia, and this is their debut from 1975. I can only imagine how much the lyrics would have resonated with the youth from that country at this time. Very political with a lot of satire. Talk about anti-establishment! Much like Zappa I suppose, who influenced this band a lot. Toughest thing for me are the vocals which are rough, theatrical and singing in his own language. Takes away from it, but I'm sure the opposite is true to someone who understands the language.

Instrumentally this is really enjoyable, and I like how they add samples to the music. Basically the straight up four piece of guitar, bass, drums and organ, but with a second guitarist and a vocalist. There's a bluesy flavour at times especially on that fourth track. My favourite is the fifth song which is organ led early on, a rocker. The closer is also quite good.

I suppose me listening to this would be like a non-english speaker listening to "We're Only In It For The Money". We are missing out.