BETTIE SERVEERT: PALOMINE (1992)
1) Leg; 2) Palomine; 3) Kid's
Alright; 4) Brain-Tag; 5) Tom Boy; 6) Under The Surface; 7) Balentine; 8) This
Thing Nowhere; 9) Healthy Sick; 10) Sundazed To The Core; 11) Palomine (Small).
First things first: this band used to be quite
heavily overrated by the indie community, since indie people tend to value bands
for their fire, ferocity, and frustration rather than for their Pythagorean
qualities, so to speak — and Bettie Serveert is a prime example of that. Nowadays,
as the band's fire seems to have died down a bit, and as so many competitors
with even less talent have occupied the same turf, that reverence has largely
dissipated, yet in the early 1990s these intrepid Dutch pseudo-pioneers of
post-grunge indie-rock were really
hot stuff. But any band that chooses, of its own free will, at a certain point
in their career to cover a Bright Eyes
song (ʽLover I Don't Have To Loveʼ, in 2004), would already seem suspicious. And
yes, one listen to their acclaimed debut is enough to make you understand —
while the band is nowhere near as vile as the artistic persona of Conor Oberst,
in theory, they are capable of
empathizing with that artistic persona.
Bettie Serveert formed in Holland, although
their lead singer and chief songwriter Carol van Dijk originally came from a
Dutch family in Canada, hence her total lack of a Dutch accent (it is said, in
fact, that she never managed to learn Dutch as a «second native» language after
relocating to the Netherlands at the age of seven), nor are there any
detectable «Hollandisms» in the lyrics or the music (and if there are, I probably
wouldn't know what they would be, unless you start considering «Indorock»
people like Andy Tielman). The only Dutchism is contained in the band's name: «Betty
serves» refers to Dutch tennis player Betty Stöve, who wrote a book with that
title about her career. Apparently, judging by her record, she served all
right, but won mostly in doubles — a hint at the band members' complete mutual
interdependence? Nah, they probably just happened to fall upon the book title
while trying to come up with a name.
Anyway, what is detectable is an almost slavish adoration of dirty distorted «avant-garage»
rock — the three major pillars upon which Bettie Serveert try to erect their
own little outpost are The Velvet Underground; Neil Young in his Crazy Horse
incarnation; and, from a more recent era, Sonic Youth. The lineup is simple and
traditional. The rhythm section (Herman Bunskoeke on bass and Berend Dubbe on
drums) is competent, but nothing special. The basic song structures are shaped
by Carol herself, playing rhythmic patterns that she probably learned while
listening to her idols — nothing special, either. The only member of the band
who tries to be just a tad more creative is lead guitarist Peter Visser: his
lead parts are thoroughly derivative of Lou Reed, Neil Young, and the Sonic
Youth people in terms of style, but his is the responsibility for the melodic
content of the songs, and every once in a while he comes up with some original
ideas — thank God, or the whole thing would be a total drag.
Now what is it that made people actually fall
in love with this bunch of slow / mid-tempo, rather sloppy, thoroughly uncatchy
mixes of grungy grumble with hookless folksy chord sequences? As talented as
Peter Visser is, the bulk of the band's charisma is generated by Carol — it is
she, after all, who writes and delivers the lyrics, and classic-era Bettie
Serveert is not a «pop» or a «hard rock» band; it is, first and foremost, a «singer-songwriter»
outfit. Each song is a short (sometimes long) personal rant, usually of the «me
and you» variety, full of obscure psychologism and veiled complexes — so
thickly veiled, in fact, that it can be fairly hard to decode what the hell is
that girl really singing about. However,
my biggest problem with Carol is not her lyrics, but her personality, which has
so far failed to make me a convert. Her voice is fairly normal — neither too sweet-sappy-sentimental nor too
arrogant-barking-punkish, just sort of a regular mezzo-soprano with a lot of mezzo and not so much soprano, if you
get my drift. Her modulations and mood shifts are subtle and hard to notice,
and even harder to interpret, much like the lyrics. But at the same time, there
is also none of that crawl-under-your-skin mystique that sometimes infects you
when listening to certain superficially unassuming vocalists.
At her worst (usually when she begins to rise
up the scale in «climactic» emotional outsbursts, e.g. the "have I ever
laid my hands on you before?" bit on ʽBrain-Tagʼ), she can be seriously
annoying. At her best, like when she gets into dreamy, subtly romantic mode on
the title track, she can be mildly pleasant and listenable. But none of this,
to me, seems like either great singing or even great «personality demonstration».
Perhaps it just so happened that there was this acute demand for strong,
intelligent female personalities emerging from behind walls of guitar
distortion in the early 1990s, and Carol van Dijk happened to catch that wave —
but I am willing to go on record saying that she's got nothing on Aimee Mann,
and, totally sacrilegious as it may sound, I'd even say that Alanis
Morissette's Jagged Little Pill has
more of that «intense female personality» than Palomine, not to mention catchier songs (admittedly far stupider
lyrics, though — then again, since I do not understand most of van Dijk's lyrics,
I have no way of telling exactly how stupid or intelligent they could appear to
be).
Anyway, like I said, if it weren't for Visser, Palomine would be one of the draggiest
albums I've ever heard. But already on the first track — ʽLegʼ, beginning as a
rambling, directionless, irritatingly impressionist folk-rocker — he gradually
manages to pull my attention away from Carol's ranting about "reflections
in puddles and rain on the faces" and into his own world of trippy rock
soloing that quotes freely from both Neil Young's and Robert Fripp's bag of
tricks and eventually scales those heights of sonic ecstasy that Carol, on her
own, would have no chance at even noticing from afar, making it well worth
your while to sit through all of the song's six minutes rather than yawning off
after the first couple of minutes.
This makes it easy for me to segregate the remaining
songs — the more lead guitar they have, the better chance of survival. ʽKid's
Allrightʼ is a fast rocker where even van Dijk pumps up a spoonful of anger,
and Visser throws on lead lines and solos that are quite worthy of the annual
Sonic Youth prize. ʽBalentineʼ sounds like a lost outtake from Neil Young's Ragged Glory (with a balance of
idealistic romance and furious anger that recalls ʽLove And Only Loveʼ); and on
ʽThis Thing Nowhereʼ, Visser thrusts his lead axe right under Carol's nose
almost all the way through, and even if she has quite a pretty nose, guess who
wins. On the other hand, the seven-minute epic ʽSundazed To The Coreʼ, most of
it an unholy mess of distracted jangle, noise, and repetitive, hazy,
half-hearted screeching, is so unbearable that I tend to end my listening
experience with ʽHealthy Sickʼ (an equally sloppy noisefest, but only lasts for
two minutes).
In short, you can see the reaction is pretty
mixed here, but there is definitely no way that I could agree with the
assessment of Palomine as a
masterpiece of Nineties' indie-rock, or even as the band's own masterpiece. I
could see where, like so many other albums, it could be embraced by «alternative»-minded
college teens in search of a generational support that wouldn't be too trendy
or too gimmicky, but, like most of these albums, I'd be surprised if it managed
to stand the test of time. The funniest thing about this band, however, is that,
the more musical they got, the less critical respect they would earn for that
— as if being even a pale copy of Sonic Youth was more of an achievement than
trying to excel at, you know, actual songwriting. But all in due time.
Check "Palomine" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Palomine" (MP3) on Amazon
This is one of those authentically Dutch bands that my father always raves about, but never listens to, and I don't think he's heard more than a few songs on the radio, so it's empty praise. If the band sounds somewhat respectable and intriguing you can convince almost anyone not well acquainted with their actual songs that they're critically respectable and all-around great.
ReplyDelete"it is said, in fact, that she never managed to learn Dutch as a «second native» language "
ReplyDeleteI just checked on YouTube. Her Dutch contains a genuine Dutch accent (hardly anybody speaks it without any accent).
I also only have heard a few songs on the radio and thought them invariably boring. But hey, I was captured by Therapy? in those years.
Andy Tielmann was a fantastic guitar player before his car accident though. Black Eyes Rock is stunning.