ANALENA

Carbon based

CD/LP/cass, Moon Lee

A new record label with a curious name and logo (a karate chopping lemon that is also part time rockabilly?? Maybe some sort of wordplay – Lee Moon > lemon – or something? Am I close? ) from Slovenia starting off with one of the longest lasting hardcore/punk/somethingelse-bands from Croatia, the great Analena. It might be futile to say, but this label proves that the countries of former Yugoslavia are not a single step behind the so called western nations, or at least Austria, as far as cool bands that play great music are concerned. Or maybe it is just this label taking the crème of the crop and I never get to hear the rest. Well, anyway. I have here the first three releases on this label and they are all well worth checking out, so go ahead and look for the reviews of Lunar and Don’t mess with Texas. But this one here will be the only review I’ll be talking about the label because for one, I don’t like to repeat myself too much, and second, you should be reading all reviews anyway. So there. These three bands are very different (hc/punk vs. postrock) but all of them plus the label seem to adhere to the very well received punkrock-ethos aka a mixture of DIY, global friendship-networks, Fuck the system and trying to do business without doing business. Which gives them bonus points right from the beginning. More bonus points can be shoved in for being the only label I know that still releases their records on cassettes as well. (Do you remember that - tapes? That was the best thing before burning CD-Roms became a major sport among teenagers.)

“Carbon based” is Analena’s second full length album. Their last release was a split-10” with Austrian noise-rockers Sensual Love on Interstellar records (who I’ve heard nothing off in the last months I suddenly realize. I hope the title of this 10” “It’s never too late to split up” hasn’t come true.)

Analena might be the best known band from Croatia, due to their constant touring and willingness to play anywhere at anytime. Musically, they fall right between the chairs of emotional, political hardcore and aggressive, psychotic indierock. (Falling between the chairs musically is another thing we at Cracked like a lot.) Back in the day, when bands like Bad Trip and Yuppiecide still existed, we used to call this Psych-Core or even Angst-core, which doesn’t fit Analena really, because there is no heavy dose of nihilism, depression and phobia within these songs. They are are emotional, heavily banging in slow(er) tempi and loud as they should be, but they seem to have an edge of positive thinking and hope for the future in them amidst all mayhem and disorder. Like the cover, where those angry looking people run out of the burning city into what might be a coach or trainwagon, but they are all painted in green and yellow, with a sun coming up from the bottom (??) which gives the whole startling and aggressive picture a tonality of hope and freedom.

Moreover, the lyrics are full of “dream amplifiers” and “the air .. filled with possibibilities” and other ideas that hint at a possibly brighter future ahead. Of course, with their roots in punkrock there are the expected songs about the cruelty against regular people and workers of modern life, anti-war songs and how mankind destroys itself and the world, but Analena have totally skipped the sloganeering and crude common places in favour if very personal lyrics that tend towards the dreamlike and cryptic at times. And usually they’ll have an element that’ll snap you right back into (their) reality when about to fly off into stream of consciousness-associating.

The songs are full of melodies that you can find if you get through all the noisy guitars and harsh arrangements, as on the great “Spilt Milk” with its double harmonic singing, various parts of dynamic de-tension and releases. Later on in the album, they take the tension and full-force heaviness back a little and give themselves some time to breathe, e.g. on “From Automatic to Manual”. Still, Ana the singer keeps on screaming and wailing that I get afraid her voice might give up during the course of the album. Okay, I know it won’t happen, but I wonder how her voice keeps up during a longer tour with a show every night. Well, I hope I can see that soon, when they come to Vienna to play here. In the meantime, I’ll guess “carbon based” stays close to my stereo.