Telegrafy

Active since 2003, Banda are one of the leading folk bands in Slovakia. This is their fourth album. The six-piece group draw extensively on traditional songs from different regions, but make them their own. With leader Samo Smetana on violin, Alžbeta Lukáčová on cimbalom and Ivan Hanula on mandolin there are distinctive Slovak flavours in the music plus strong polyphonic vocals on some tracks. ‘Telegrafy’ (Telegraph Poles) is a love song from Telgárt, a heartland of traditional music. It dates from the 1920s, when an important railway connection was built. The catchiest song is ‘Horčica’ (Mustard), which opens with a whirl of violin czárdás and then lurches into a slightly cheesy, Gypsy-style song.

There are many interesting ingredients in Banda's music (and amusing shots in the booklet), but somehow the whole is less than the sum of its parts. It's the arrangements that let them down with ‘Suníčko’ (Sun) getting locked into a pedestrian rhythm and the closing ‘Gazda’ (Farmer) making a trite finish. Banda are better when they're not trying to be a Slovak world music band. Their previous album, Na Mijave Na Rínečku, which explored the folk music collection of leader Samo Smetana's grandfather, was rather more interesting.