RASKORAK

OKO's only LP record was issued in 1976 under the title "Raskorak" (Eng. "Standing Astride"). Amongst the frequent line-up changes, the bandleader Pavel Kavec remained the sole original member backed this time by drummer Tone Dimnik and bassist Franjo Martinac. After so many years the album gained a sort of a cult status given the original issue was printed in small circulation and never re-issued, hence the crazy price of this record on e-Bay.

The title is true; the band was really standing astride between rather banal hard rock and some ambitious prog and fusion leanings, never fully developing into either direction. Kavec is solid guitarist, a follower of Jimi Hendrix technique, but bad vocalist. That said, the two opening tunes where he sings - "Hoće? li samnom" (Eng. Are You Going With Me) and "Sve sam ti dao" (Eng. I've Given You Everything) - are still sounding convincing and strong, both having a groovy heavy rocking and decent singing and composition. They might have been hits had the label tried harder to pursue these Slovenes throughout then Yugoslav market, especially because the lyrics were sung in Serbo-Croat (then a common language widely spoken and understood by almost 20 million people in ex-Yugoslavia). But, it was obviously not the case so they disappeared from the scene shortly after the album release.

Two instrumental tracks, both closing each side, showed different, slightly jazz-rock face of OKO. Composed by Martinac, "Tema IV" has a nice funky groove with spacey synth solo, while Kavec's title track is a prog-oriented fusion with excellent guitar-synth keyboard solo duel. Both tracks owe much to the guest keyboard player Andrej Konjajev who later participated in the short lived but amazing jazz-rock group IZVIR. Unfortunately, this cannot be said for another guest musician, Zlatko Manojlović (ex-DAH). With his irritating falsetto vocal he simply destroyed the ballad "Sam sam" (Eng. I Am Alone), which was on its own a poor attempt to mimic URIAH HEEP's huge hit "July Morning". Ironically, Manojlović is much better singer than Kavec, but here he simply tried to imitate David Byron that resulted in a disaster. The rest of the tracks contain rather banal hard rock without any memorable moments.

Too bad that the band with remarkable instrumental potentials did not come up with stronger and better arranged material so it remained a "hit and miss" one-time attempt.

Max Plus CD reissue of 1998 contains 5 bonus tracks of all vocal compositions but sung in Slovene. The music market obviously shrunk in the meantime from 20 to 2 millions population.

PERSONAL RATING: 2,5/5

P.A. RATING: 3/5