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Buldozer - Pljuni Istini U Oci CD (album) cover

PLJUNI ISTINI U OCI

Buldozer

RIO/Avant-Prog


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5 stars When this album was released in 1975,it sent shocking waves throughout Yugoslavian rock scene for being overly,to put it mildly,avant-garde,self-indulgent and completely anarchic.Now,if you put all these epithets in perspective from purely musical staindpoint,you'll get an unprecedent RIO/avant-garde masterpiece in the vein of Mothers&Zappa,only more on the rock side of the genre.Thealbum is so hilarious and fun to listen,musicianship is top-notch,and all seems like soundtrack for big,weird party.Only problem is the language barrier,more than with any other Yu rock band,you simply have to understand what these guys are singing(?!) about to be able to appreciate music.'Cause words are equally important here.You can find all kinds of musical genres in here,from psychedelic sounds of the opener and polka in "Zivot je feferon" to slow blues in "Gnjus blues" or heavy prog of "Yes mu baby,no".There are some outrageous moment on the record,like puking sounds from a drunk guy in the bathroom or final chorus "I don't want to be a paraplegic".Instrumentation is heavy guitar and hammond organ-led interrupted by outrageous voicing and funny choruses.Altough album was widely criticized by establishment,band received highest recognition from Youth association,rewarding album as a best rock accomplishment of the year.Essential album of European avant-garde rock music,higlly reccomended.
Report this review (#61891)
Posted Tuesday, December 27, 2005 | Review Permalink
Seyo
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator
5 stars 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 It came out in 1975 just to be withdrawn from the market shortly thereupon.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!

Report this review (#61902)
Posted Tuesday, December 27, 2005 | Review Permalink
5 stars The album was released 1975 and in those times it was a revolution on the Yugoslav music scene. Their mix of satire, irony, Zappa-like humor, freaky rock music and top-notch playing became an instant hit. The record was sold out soon after it's release as the record company PGP RTB refused to print more copies (even though inquiry was very high.)

"Najpogodnije mjiesto" (Best place) A spoken intro with a bottleneck background about the best place to commite a sucide.

"Zivot, to je feferon" ( Life is a chili pepper) Is the first real song on the album, it is a satire about life. It's devided in three parts; "Zivot, sreca, ljubav"(Life, luck, love), "Tramvaj"(Tramway), "Djevojcice male"(Little girl) and it features a great guitar solo from Boris Bele and Hammond organ work from Borut Cinc.

"Sto to radis, Buldozer jedan?!" (What are you doing, you Buldozer?!) Also devided into three parts - "Jedem govedu supu"(I'm eating cow soup), "Bikova osveta"( The bull discovers) and "Idem u raj"(I'm going to ) - is a masterpiece of funny wordplay about a bull and a man who ate his mother.

"Blues gnjus"(Disgust blues) A straight blues track with Marko Brecelj's vocals in the forefront. The lyrics and wordplay are again incredible. The song ends with a sound of a man vomiting because of all the little beast in his head, this is also the theme of song.

"Ljubav na prvi krevet"(Love at first bed) and "Yes my baby, no" are satires about love, romance and relationships. Moods, tempos and styles change quite often. Both songs are hilarious but each in it's own way, each havenig it's style and special feeling.

Styles here are incredibly diverse; hard rock, psychedelic, polka, blues, comedy and of course avant-garde inflances, this is resaulted in an incredible and unique sound of Pljuni Istini U Oci. Sadly thoug, true gratness of this album is only accessbile to people that speak serbo-croatian. In my opinion the best and the greatest album from Buldozer, one of the greatest rock bands from ex-Yugoslavia. Highly reccomended!!!(5/5)

Report this review (#92548)
Posted Friday, September 29, 2006 | Review Permalink
5 stars I didn't know what to expect exactly from the first Yugoslavian 'avant garde' band, since I never was really informed about the genre and I also expected Buldozer to be just another Yugoslavian hard rock band from the seventies with typical 'love and sorrow' lyrics, bad production and almost no creativity, altough the band name itself always drew my attention to explore them.Few bands from that era brought out originality from their music and performance and Buldozer was one of those bands, for sure.Before Buldozer came onto the rock scene, the Yugoslavian republic of Slovenia really didn't have any adequate representatives for the prog genre, or rock genre in general, only shlager-festival groups and beat-pop formations with the same prepared recipe for 'the success', as with the other republics.Then came Buldozer, first with their single 'Rastemo/Svaki covjek ima svoj bluz', which, at the first listen, seems as regular as any acoustical pop music with tender guitars, orchestral arrangements and moderate tempo,that is, until you hear the lyrics and crazy vocals in chorus in one of the songs.Then came the debut 'Pljuni istini u oci', an explosive package full of witty and insane humour, irregularly sharp musical playfullness, daring lyrics and paranoid vocalising with shocking reactions all around it.It brought the change of the direction of rock music in Yugoslavia, as Buldozer proved to be the forefathers of the oncoming new wave/punk explosion in the country and also that of expressive artistic freedom in the socialist enviroment of the state.The album is experimental in nature, twisting out the stories of love (Ljubav na prvi krevet), human nature(Sta to radis,Buldozeru jedan, Yes, my baby, no) and philosophy of the life (Zivot, to je feferon) and turning it into something un- stereotypical, crazy and ironical.The music often changes moods, going from regular to aggressive, from calm into outrageous and the Buldozer just keeps on rollin' from start to finish.The production is little bit raw, but it suits the kind of music, and the sound effects are phenomenal.The unique blend of psychodelia with heavy rock and avant garde prog flavored with South-Slovene humour is just something music scene of Yugoslavia needed at that time.Album is certainly one of the most experimental and daring accomplishments of the Yugoslavian rock and by my opinion, belongs to a group of the best Yugoslavian and Eastern-European progressive rock albums.5 out of 5 for the Marko Brecelj, Boris Bele and the rest of the company.
Report this review (#148394)
Posted Wednesday, October 31, 2007 | Review Permalink
clarke2001
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator
4 stars 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.

Report this review (#150426)
Posted Monday, November 12, 2007 | Review Permalink
2 stars Some folky rock tunes, quite weird, too much, but not enough for me. I don't like when there's some quotes from known songs. Harsh and nice sound reminds me of Beastie Boys' experiments, with jazz, blues. The hard rock, or classic rock, is original, but all in all, the dynamics, different musical styles, almost polyphony and the scales used, makes this one worth. My favourite song is Ljubav na prvi krevet. Also Sta to radis, buldozeru jedan?! and Yes my baby, no are good. But I give only 2 stars for this, maybe because this Buldozer wasn't as good as I was hoping, or maybe it's just boring. Though, the boringness is symphatetic and I've learned to love this album also. It's like apathetic but crazy.
Report this review (#159889)
Posted Saturday, January 26, 2008 | Review Permalink
snobb
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR
Honorary Collaborator
4 stars 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.

Report this review (#279493)
Posted Monday, April 26, 2010 | Review Permalink

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