The 14-minute album offers a surprisingly large amount of food for thought. First, it clearly demonstrates the advantages of the EP format over traditional full-length albums or singles. Take Nogu Svelo!’s previous full-length record I Wanna Ram! as an example: it was recorded over a long period, featuring 13 tracks, including remakes, remixes, and a rather eclectic mix of songs. Some tracks felt like filler, and 4–5 of them could have easily been replaced by other material “from the archives.” In contrast, the four-track maxi-single contains no ballast. The tracklist was created fresh, quickly, and somewhat spontaneously from recently written compositions. The artist could have delayed them until the following year, written a few more songs, or even reconsidered this first batch altogether—ultimately losing the moment. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and the EP became a precise snapshot of Max Pokrovsky’s creativity during the quarantine spring of 2020. Second, while many pop stars spent lockdowns idly experimenting with makeup or lamenting missed performance fees, Nogu Svelo! showed how quarantine could inspire a true creative breakthrough. “Honestly, I was deeply focused during quarantine; I was hit with a wave of creativity,” says Pokrovsky. “I recorded an entire album.” He doesn’t use the word inspiration, but it seems accurate: you can always distinguish between forced attempts to cheer yourself and your fans, and songs born out of genuine artistic drive. The pre-lockdown track Golden Time and the newly written TeleStar, Selection, and Breathe! all sound dynamic, catchy, and full of energy. Pokrovsky’s PR instincts also found clever expression here. Strictly speaking, there’s no direct “quarantine theme” in the tracks, yet he came up with a darkly poetic concept that these four songs “could have been the four final posts of the last blogger”: no one will hear or read them anymore, yet he publishes them anyway. This allowed Nogu Svelo! to ride the wave of a timely theme while proving that the songs stand strong without topical framing—they’re excellent on their own. The EP offers the band’s signature mix of absurd humor, sharp cultural references, and raw rock energy, topped with a few outstanding melodies (Golden Time and TeleStar) and Breathe!’s whirlwind genre shifts, from alt-rock to rap. The only weaker point is Selection, which lacks some of the band’s trademark irony, relying instead on heavy-handed metaphors about “herds” and exaggerated dramatics. Still, three out of four songs are truly impressive—a remarkably high success rate, even for veteran rock stars.