Cossack Attack!

Slovak sextet Čendeš are a relatively recently formed band framed around the cimbalom (a hammered dulcimer the size of a small piano), including three fiddles, contrabass and drums, with four members sharing vocal duties. This, their second CD, starts a little unpromisingly with a rather forced jollity with shouts and skirls, perhaps in an attempt to lure the listener in by a pretence at passionate and reckless musical abandon. Soon, however, it moves into far more interesting areas with an imaginative set of folk arrangements and original material. The fifth track, the brief but concentrated ‘Sosna Lament’ with a gorgeous bass and cimbalom duo, leads into the strangely unsettling vocals and elegant dance movement of ‘Horila Sosna’. On ‘Zelene Je Žyto’, the precisely judged rhythm of bass and percussion supports a rich-sounding vocal duet, succeeded by a thoroughly virtuosic violin solo, with good portion of wit in the arrangement. Such wit is again on display on the party song ‘Oj Nunu’, which boasts an almost comic cimbalom solo. By the time the final track, ‘A Čija to Chyža’, has arrived – via a moody, jazz-like introduction – the sudden slip into acoustic rap is not a complete surprise.