The first thing I noticed when i first cracked open the plastic, tossed the CD in my CD player and let the first strains come to my ears was 3 things: 1) that there is no electric guitar (except for one of the songs) only an acoustic. 2) The singer (Bojan Petroviæ)’s voice is different. It’s the voice of a Serbian who just learned English a week ago and to supplement the accent, he had an Irish language instructor. 3) the band play with such energy that the absence of a crashing electric guitar is not noticed. For many songs, Bojan’s voice accompanies the acoustic for the first part of the song and then the rest of the band joins in. Bojan’s somber Serbian accent renders track with needed severity in some cases and an almost humorous irony. At the risk of being horribly incorrect, I think they sound like Siobhan, acoustic but still punky. There are only a few tracks that stand out which make the price a little too much even if (like me) you gotta have’em. We start off with a nice upbeat little track called McGee’s Daughter. The whistle/fiddle/drums combined with that ever prominent voice provide a sharp, fun melody. The next track, Why, asks the eternal question in a sad tone which doesn’t make it any less of a great track. We skip ahead to Patrick Malone, a dark ambiance around a rousing song about a man and his problems with the drink. We skip again, to my favorite track on the album, Stout. The acoustic guitar and fiddle anchor a rollicking song with an awesome chorus. “Fuckin’ stout, fuckin’ stout. I’ll drink all night, and I don’t care if it’s wrong or right, stout, fuckin’ stout, I drink all night and then in the morning I’m so fuckin’ drunk!”, awesome track. The next track of note is a reworking of the classic, Black & Tans. The lyrics bring a smile to your lips as Bojan slurs tries to pronounce the complicated phrases and the jig-like energy takes some of the usual sadness which so often surrounds other covers of this track. Right behind it comes Skibereen, the song starts lament-like as Bojan’s somber Serbian accent renders the sadness of having to leave Ireland until the guitar, fiddle and banjo join in to provide a backbeat. All in all, while I love this CD, there probably aren’t that many others who would shell out the copious amounts of cash(almost $30!) required to obtain this unless they really like it. I wouldn’t recommend it if you don’t already love ’em.

2008

Review: Bigmac

Okay, I want to start off by saying that this is a great CD. This band is a tight, solid and cohesive group of musicians that create a sound so completely synchronized and in harmony with each other. I dig their sound… A lot.

Okay, with the editorial portion out of the way, Irish Stew of Sindidun is a six-piece, Celtic folk-punk outfit out of Belgrade in the former-Yugoslavian state of Serbia. Their instrumentation on this CD includes acoustic guitar, bass, drums, banjo, fiddle and tin whistle, with all of the lyrics in English, (albeit a somewhat accented one.)

Singer/whistler/chief songwriter Bojan Petrovic’s slightly nasally midrange tenor voice comes in so well connected to band’s sound and really carries the emotions of the songs with a lazy melancholy appropriately befitting the subject matter on ‘Dare To Dream,’ the band’s second full-length release.

The CD consists of twelve tracks; ten originals, two covers, and one instrumental. The songs on ‘Dare To Dream’ are not the “mug-swinging, sing-along” kind by a long shot. Instead the mood carried is a darker, introspective and brooding one with titles like ‘Blessed and Damned,’ ‘Pile of Sins,’ ‘Life Without Living On A Sunny Winter Day,’ ‘Memories,’ and ‘I Will Never (Be Your Friend.)’ The disc’s two cover tracks are traditional numbers; the fittingly somber ‘Carrickfergus,’ and the ironically happiest-sounding song on the disc, that traditional, toe-tapping little ditty about reclusive infanticide, ‘Weila, Waila.’

‘Dare To Dream’ comes off Celtic-sounding more in instrumentation and ornamentation than in it’s songs’ structure themselves, and, due to this, has me comparing this band to ‘The BibleCode Sundays,’ ‘The Mahones,’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘The GO Set.’ Not necessarily for their sound, but in the way that all elements work together so seamlessly to create a sound that begins in a Celtic-influenced light punk arena and bleeds into many different styles consistently.

It seems that most of these Slavic bands have remained in the more obscure corner of the genre; perhaps due to language or cultural differences, or perhaps due to the high cost of obtaining some of these bands’ material, But Irish Stew Of Sindidun is not one that should be overlooked.

2008

Review by Christopher Toler, THE Blathering Gommel