LUDNIK

It's surprising to see the kind of music that is labeled throughout the Balkan countries as only pop and ballad, and M.M. BARTULICA certainly isn't someone who I would check out on a whim so I thank the PA for showcasing these artist's talents.

The ballad label does hold some strength on some tracks, for me mainly because of vocal delivery and sometimes cheesy choruses (reminding me of BIJELO DUGME) but the instrumental side of music is too good to ignore with lots of instrumental passages and lyrics sometimes too dark and personal for constant airplay, making it more of an album you listen for yourself alone than anything else.

So what does it sound like? Music has this MIKE OLDFIELD syndrom, where it plays in with nice rock on electric guitar with elements of folk or various different genres (a bit neo-prog maybe on the instrumental track) poping up here and there in a modern way. This album is like that, but having more pop rock sensibility which breaks apart every now and then but fits the music well, for example "Basna O Bosni" ("Tale About Bosna") has this you could call it fusion type piano passage around which the bridge of the song is formed and you wouldn't expect it the way song starts. Most of the songs have enough of headroom where they explore different musical ideas before they turn back to delivering lyrics and choruses (songs being around 5 minutes long rather than classic 3), which is the main great difference between this album and all other pop/folk rock being released in these countries. This is the type of music that I put in my brain somewhere near solo work of the Macedonian guitar virtuoso VLATKO STEFANOVSKI with less early fusion and more on later day combination of rock and folk (but not his acoustic albums).

Overall, the more classic songs outnumber the better ones (track "Običan Dan" "Normal Day" is like something of the original pop band BOLERO in the 80's ) but those with the knowledge of the language should absolutely check this one out; so I'm making it 3 stars for prog fans, as I imagine that the excellent opener "Ludnik","Basna O Bosni", nice filler "Put prema ti?ini.." or instrumental "Faun" will be too little good material for an album with 10 tracks. Also recommended to art rock and folk rock fans.