NA TRAVI

"On The Grass" is the sixth studio album by AERODROM. It appeared after a 15-years hiatus during which time the leader Jurica Padjen was engaged with the celebrated Yugo New Wave rockers AZRA and his own short-lived PADJEN BAND. "Na travi" makes a sort of reunion with the original vocalist and percussionist Zlatan Zivkovic and keyboardist Mladen Krajnik, while this is the first album without the original bassist, and long-time the only constant member along with Padjen, Remo Krstanovic Cartagine, who has been replaced by Tomislav Sojat.

After a string of commercial mainstream pop albums during the 1980s, we are here faced with a return to their (prog) rock roots, presumably under the influence of two aforementioned returnees. This is a solid album that calls for repeated listening although the material is not very consistent throughout and varies in quality.

The highest points are concentrated in the middle and at the end of the album. The former are present in the tracks: "Nebo ce uz tebe stati" ("The Skies Will Stand By Your Side"), "Ne gledaj u pod" ("Don't Look At The Floor") and "Za Juliju car" ("Emperor For Julia"), all running longer than 5 minutes each, and having a nice laid back sound of soft rock crossing over to "neo-prog" or adult contemporary rock, with lots of nice keyboard and guitar solo parts and melodic hooks. The latter moments end the album with excellent Zivkovic-sung "Bistra voda" ("Clear Water"), containing slow tempo acoustic guitar sounds and arrangement close to country rock, and similarly sounding "Badnja noc" ("Christmas Night") that segues in a prog rock manner into a closing "Christmas Jam" instrumental.

Unfortunately the remaining songs are not on par with the mentioned highlights, rambling around the unconvincing and generic pop rock formats with some unnecessary reliance on blockbuster hits from the past - listen to the leading ROXETTE-like guitar riff in an aptly titled "Kakva zabava" ("What A Party"). Still, although making no full blown return to the dated YES-like style of the debut album, "Na travi" was a nice surprise for me and, PA rating notwithstanding, will deserve my personal evaluation at 3,5/5.