Holograf - Undeva Departe

Holograf - Undeva Departe

Today I'll be writing about a band that I'm fairly certain most of the people reading will not have heard of, but really should. The band in question is one of Romania's most popular and long lasting rock bands, Holograf.

Undeva Departe is sort of a hard album to talk about objectively, as it is first and foremost a best of album, with the traditional one bonus song. The thing is, most of the songs have been re-recorded or remastered (unfortunately, my grasp of Romanian is limited only to its similarities with Latin, Spanish, or French so I can't say which of those) More confusing still, some of the tracks are from previous best of compilation Banii Vorbesc. As a result of this, I'm going to try to just regard Undeva Departe as a separate entity entirely.

Holograf have been around since 1978, and were relatively prolific in that time. When this album was released in 1999, they had 6 LPs, 1 EP and a previous best of to draw from. The selections for this album leaned fairly heavily upon the mid '80s output from the band, which I frankly think was their best period stylistically, so the updated recording quality made for a good choice.

The reason why I prefer the period from which most of these songs were drawn from is because in their early days Holograf were a hard rock band, drawing somewhat on the style of the 1980s but not to excess. (As a dramatic comparison, listen to their most recent release, 2006's Taina which is closer to elevator pop than anything the band recorded prior to this release)

Because of the emphasis on the early middle period of the band's output, there is a decent amount of heavier songs, but the albums isn't all rockers. The band wasn't as well known for their slower, more ballad like tracks at this point, but the quieter songs contrast nicely with the heavier ones.

This was the first album that I heard from Holograf, and to date the only one that I've been able to find in hard copy, and I think it's an excellent introduction to the band and the sound that they carried forward up to this point. I'm not a huge fan of the band's two most recent LPs, but for those who like a sort of hard rock carried forward from the 1980s Holograf are an excellent listen.

8/10