Review of the album "Borderline" by Russian rock singer Zemfira
"Borderline" - this is the name given to the first album in 8 years by rock singer Zemfira. It was released on February 26, 2021: the unusual title of the work is inspired by the English name for Borderline personality disorder. Work on the record began in 2018, when the singer announced the suspension of her concert activities. At the beginning of 2021, an old friend of the performer, actress Renata Litvinova, announced the readiness of the long-awaited album! When "Borderline" leaked online, Zemfira made several comments regarding the tracks, stating that one of them was written during the pandemic. Today we are here to review this work in more detail...
About the album
For several decades, each new Zemfira album has been a big event in the world of Russian rock! Actually, like her every new track, which instantly penetrated all radio stations ... In the Russian music business, there was even a legend: they say the year when Zemfira releases a new album will be extremely prolific for cool releases!
Perhaps that is why a flurry of criticism and general indignation related to her latest release hit the singer: many openly stated that Zemfira did not live up to their expectations ... Is this really so? It's hard to answer...
Some of the work seemed worthy and even “brilliant”, while others agreed that the singer was simply stuck in one place ... Many fans expected Zemfira that after eight years of silence she would burst with a grandiose sound! But that did not happen. The album "Borderline" is about good old nostalgia, about how time flies forward, and trends along with it. And here you will not find anything new for yourself: no language, no style ... Zemfira, it seems, is not going to betray her vector, acquired in the distant zero: all the same guitars and violins, all the same seagulls and the ocean. Her music sounds perhaps monotonous, which makes the more or less dynamic tracks "Tom" and "Pills" seem alien! Perhaps - this is the value of "Borderline"? In adherence to your style, in measured guitar riffs and serene energy? Well: every listener will find in this disc a lot of interesting questions for discussion...
"Borderline" is Zemfira's seventh and first album in the last eight years, which took two and a half years to record. In total, it included 12 tracks: some of them were released as separate singles, some sounded as part of live performances ... It is noteworthy, but the well-known songs "Joseph" and "Evil Man" (from the movie "North Wind") were not included in the release ... Apparently - Zemfira made a bet on premieres, such as "Pill" and "Coat". Perhaps it's for the best. In any case, these two tracks have already found their audience, but more on them later.
https://youtu.be/jsiqWfTbAzg
A slightly changed composition of musicians took part in the work on the album, but Dmitry Emelyanov did not disappear anywhere: he was still responsible for guitars, keyboards, programming and producing! Emelyanov even wrote the music for the song "Mama"! In general, it's time to talk about the songs in more detail ...
Tracks
As mentioned above, the album includes 12 tracks. On April 26, 2021, a video for the song "Coat" was published on Zemfira's YouTube channel: in just a few days, more than 170 thousand people watched the clip! The video was directed by Renata Litvinova. "Coat" is a dramatic piano ballad - quite traditional for Zemfira: beautiful lyrics with hints of their own emotional tragedy - this song was recognized as the best moment of the entire album ...
It is impossible to ignore the romanticized visual range: in the video for “Coat” we can see black and white autumn “portraits” of Moscow houses ... As you can imagine, they are located in the area of \u200b\u200bFrunzenskaya Embankment and Ostozhenka - places ardently adored by Zemfira ... As the performer herself admitted, she wrote this song in the hospital, presumably after she had a coronavirus infection ... In an interview, Zemfira also called the song "Coat" her favorite in this album.
Another strong track from "Borderline" was the composition "Pills". The genius of the track was noted by both music critics and listeners! The singer herself commented:
“Pills is a rather atypical song for me. But I think it's a great song for the first album in eight years..."
And indeed: this is a rather daring, frankly "rocker" track, which stands out noticeably against the background of the rest of the songs from the album! He gives the whole work a lively, cheerful start ... The guitar riff was written by one of the singer's nephews, while the chorus has existed for a long time: according to Zemfira, from time to time she scrolled it in her head ...
Conclusion…
"Borderline" is quite an attractive work. It is definitely for you if you are looking for a significant amount of drama and romanticism in music... As part of this album, Zemfira masterfully experiments with her vocals, combining electronic motifs with live beats and acoustics... As can be judged by Borderline, Zemfira belongs to those musicians who prefer not to chase trends, but to follow their own path. And in fact - sometimes this is the right decision for a professional artist! Especially when he already has his own poetics and language...
