BETTIE SERVEERT: DAMAGED GOOD (2016)
1) B-Cuz; 2) Brickwall; 3)
Brother (In Loins); 4) Damaged Good; 5) Whatever Happens; 6) Unsane; 7) Digital
Sin (Nr 7); 8) Mouth Of Age; 9) Love Sick; 10) Mrs. K; 11) Never Be Over.
The somewhat tepid reception of Oh, Mayhem! by those few reviewers and
fans that still stuck around rooting for Carol van Dijk and Peter Visser,
coupled with a three-year break in recording, finally did the trick: Damaged Good, the band's 10th studio
LP, was noticed by almost literally nobody when it came out, and it seems that
Bettie Serveert themselves expected this lack of reception, because some of
the record's bitter gloom (starting from its self-ironic title) clearly has to
do with the near-total obscurity in which they have resided for most of the
21st century.
Undeservedly so, because Damaged Good is another fine offering: not as diverse or flashy as Oh, Mayhem!, and somewhat underwhelming
at first, but still, most of the songs are solidly in the catchy-'n'-creative
pop-rock tradition. And once again, Peter Visser is as much of a hero here, if
not more so, than Carol van Dijk, managing to regularly come up with powerful
and memorable pop-rock riffs: ʽB-Cuzʼ, ʽBrother (In Loins)ʼ, the title track,
ʽLove Sickʼ, ʽMrs. Kʼ — no fewer than six short, tight numbers that could all
have reused stock phrasing and concentrated exclusively on the vocals, but all
of them begin by establishing themselves as individual guitar pieces. Mostly in
minor keys, combining power, anger, and sadness, any of these could have passed
for a potential hit single by some power-pop or post-punk band in the late
Seventies; it is not their fault, after all, that they only came up with these
tunes after fashion had turned its tables on them, and that, in all likelihood,
they will have to wait until Heaven's gates for their proper rewards for
refusing to pledge allegiance to the Luciferian likes of Max Martin.
Actually, Bettie Serveert's allegiances are
made transparently clear with the first song: not many modern listeners will
probably notice that "sometimes it feels like I'm out of my mind" is
a direct lyrical and musical quote
from The Who's ʽThe Kids Are Alrightʼ, but it definitely is, while the
follow-up, "nothing is real and nothing rhymes", may or may not be an
allusion to ʽStrawberry Fields Foreverʼ, but in any case, it still harks back
to the good old days when musically expressing the frustration of youth was a
relatively fresh and exciting challenge. In 2016, it is nowhere near «fresh», but
somehow Bettie Serveert still manage to make it somewhat exciting; at least,
exciting enough for me to forget that Carol van Dijk is well over 50 by now,
because she still burns and rages with the fury of a... well, of a 30-year old
Debbie Harry, despite some of her vocal overtones inevitably peeling off and
dragging her closer to the 70-year old Debbie Harry.
As usual, most of the songs are on a personal
rather than anthemic level: Bettie Serveert are more interested in
psychological portraits and personal relationships than social problems or
politics, and this consistency is only broken once, on the album's longest and
most questionable track, ʽDigital Sinʼ. It is the only one that reminds of the
band's original slow-and-dirty style of Palomino,
with draggy tempos, plenty of noise (including a feedback-drenched meltdown in
the middle from which the song has to drag itself out by van Dijk's vocal
cords), and an opti-pessimistic message of "we're broken inside, but we
want to believe". Whether it is still about personal problems, hyperbolically
aggrandized to macrocosmic levels, or indeed about the original sin and our
vain attempts to escape it, is unclear; it is not even clear to me if it is a
good song, but I do appreciate the timing — a lengthy, bombastic, ultra-serious
noisy post-avantgarde track in the middle of a standard pop-rock album is
jarringly appropriate.
On the whole, there are very few slip-ups:
Carol overreaches her vocal range on the album's most openly romantic number,
ʽWhatever Happensʼ (the "you and I have never met before" conclusion
to each chorus probably requires some falsetto, but what we get is an
out-of-tone screechy rasp that kills off the song's effect), and then the band
sounds a little too similar to The Cure on ʽUnsaneʼ (too close to ʽLovesongʼ
for comfort) for me to appreciate the melodrama — but even with these flaws,
both songs remain worthy of your time. And the best songs are short, simple,
and basically flawless: the title track and ʽLove Sickʼ, in particular, are
maddeningly catchy, and loaded with that sweet bitter «the real thing» energy
that magically transforms generic pop candy into concentrated outbursts of
spirituality.
Okay, before I get too corny, let me just
conclude that ʽNever Be Overʼ, the orchestrated ballad with which the band
concludes the album, is probably the best «soft» song they did so far in their
career — granted, its base melody has been recycled from some old folk or soul
patterns (I think I hear shades of ʽI Would Rather Go Blindʼ in some of the
chords), but the orchestral patterns are new, and somehow the combination of
strings, acoustic guitar, and Carol's voice results in something fresh and
deeply moving, yet trimmed of any excessive sentimentality.
And let me tell you that it is not just a
superficial thing, but at this point Bettie Serveert do sound a lot like Blondie — or, rather, like the equivalent of
Blondie, had Blondie decided to age gracefully and not focus on «staying cool
and hip» with the new generation. This here is unpretentious, bare-bones, but
creative and intelligent pop-rock with heart, soul, catchy riffs, and an
occasional stern ballad, from a band that is keen on getting smarter and ever
more adequate as time goes by. Oh,
Mayhem! was a good sign, and Damaged
Good keeps up the same level of consistency — and, most importantly, shows
that the old pop-rock format still holds up when one really puts oneself to it.
So, definitely another thumbs up.
No comments:
Post a Comment