Bettie Serveert: Damaged Good

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.

Bettie Serveert: Oh, Mayhem!

BETTIE SERVEERT: OH, MAYHEM! (2013)

1) Shake-Her; 2) Mayhem; 3) Sad Dog; 4) Had2BYou; 5) Tuf Skin; 6) Monogamous; 7) Receiver; 8) LoserTrack; 9) iPromise; 10) D.I.Y.

Oh, bother. All of a sudden and out of the blue, Bettie Serveert come out with yet another LP that gets a whoppin' three reviews on RYM and a mind-blowing four reviews on Amazon (as com­pared to, say, 523 for Rihanna's latest). And guess what? They have released their best record ever, and nobody gives a shit. That's what justice is all about.

So what's the secret, and what's the deal? Nothing could be simpler: Oh, Mayhem! is the first album in Bettie Serveert's catalog that is completely, from top to bottom, written according to the principle «pop music first, indie philosophy later». It's not that the lyrics are dumbed down or anything — it's just that guitar hooks, symmetric melodic resolutions, and carefully thought out vocal modulation consistently takes precedence over the «message», so that not even the faintest grasp of English is required to fully enjoy this stuff. The Beatles and Blondie have ushered out Lou Reed and Neil Young as primary inspiration, and while this may have pissed off some of the old guard, yearning for another Palomine, I actually view this as a self-imposed challenge: can we, after all these years, carve out a solid, non-nonsense «power pop» album or can't we?

One listen to ʽShake-Herʼ should be enough to inspire confidence. Visser's slightly surf-inspired fuzz riff, Carol's intentionally de-personalized vocals, locked in a carefully overproduced despe­rate groove, that "yada-yada-yada" resolution, and the economic length — all of this makes the track a serious contender for best pure pop song of the year, all the more amazing considering they never really did anything like it before: too smooth, too well-rounded, and, most important­ly, too unpretentious — Carol's cherished personality seems to have been splattered against the me­lody, a gesture which I, personally, applaud very loudly, since I've always thought that if any­thing ever prevented this band from getting real good, it was that goddamn ego.

That ego is not completely erased (already on the second track, ʽMayhemʼ, it perks up a bit), but even at its perkiest here it is still subjected to obeying musical purposes. ʽMayhemʼ flaunts its trivial, power chord-based riff louder and prouder than Carol flaunts her voice, which is soon drowned in the soft, subdued, folky arpeggios of the bridge — and then joins Visser's guitar in all of its intonations on the loud chorus: that "oh no, not me, oh mayhem, oh mayhem!" bit is a pretty damn good imitation of a panic attack during a sleepless night. In recognition, Visser ends the song with a totally kick-ass overdriven solo (and it ain't the only one).

Amazingly, almost every song out of ten has something going for it, so I will only name some major highlights. ʽHad2BYouʼ, despite the awful spelling, has some lovely Beatlesque guitar / vocal moves. ʽMonogamousʼ interrupts the formulaic pop flow of the album for a quasi-mystical chant, adorned with roaring waves of feedback and various guitar effects, sort of a «Sinead O'Connor meets Led Zeppelin» impression. ʽReceiverʼ, in terms of fury and loudness, is probably the closest they come to the old Bettie sound, but even here a catchy chorus is in order, and the necessity to rise over the din of the rhythm spurs Visser on to deliver another set of ecstatic, punch-drunk solos. And ʽD.I.Y.ʼ closes the album with the best display of lead guitar techni­que on the entire album — there is a tricky break there around 2:10 where the rhythm shifts from funky to bluesy without disrupting the flow of the song, but giving it some extra dynamics.

In all honesty, I never expected this. It actually takes a lot of talent these days to deliver a no-frills power pop album and get away with it, without all or most of the songs sounding like weak, un­memorable, copycat creations. But Oh, Mayhem! delivers the goods in form and in spirit — it's loud, it's crunchy, it's filled with sympathetic, life-asserting guitar moves, it's brimming with life and energy, so what's not to like? The fact that it is not quite clear what they actually want to say and where exactly they are going with this? Maybe — but on a record as bubbling with life as this one, you don't really need any straight answers. Might as well just enjoy the ride, and admire all the shiny saddle ornaments. Thumbs up.

Bettie Serveert: Pharmacy Of Love

BETTIE SERVEERT: PHARMACY OF LOVE (2010)

1) Deny All; 2) Semaphore; 3) Love Lee; 4) Mossie; 5) The Pharmacy; 6) Souls Travel; 7) Calling; 8) Change4Me; 9) What They Call Love.

Say what you will, but it can be nice to admire the tightness of artistic bonds — absolutely no­body needs Bettie Serveert to stick around for another decade, yet on they plough, with the Vis­ser / van Dyk partnership stronger than ever; for all we know, they'll still be around by 2050, and that is when they will finally take their revenge on the musical community. In the meantime, Phar­macy Of Love at least remedies the flaw of their previous album — no more of that philosophi­cal acoustic shit, we are back to full-dressed electric arrangements, and not only that, but we've also pumped up the tempos quite a bit: Pharmacy Of Love is the band's fastest, loudest, angriest record since... ever? Maybe since ever.

The difference goes beyond the tempos, though, or maybe it is the tempos that are responsible for compressing the band into a much tighter format. Many of the songs, instead of relying on rela­tively free jangle-folk-pop strumming, are now either riff-based or follow punk / post-punk rhythm patterns that leave no space for rhythmic variation — I guess, from a certain point of view, you could call this «selling out», since ultimately Pharmacy Of Love has quite a few things in common with commercially oriented «pop punk» forms, groping for tightness, catchiness, and even some production gloss. (In fact, I think some fans did accuse the band of selling out, despite the fact that the album couldn't have sold more than a couple hundred copies).

But the issue of «selling out» is usually unrelated to the issue of actual quality, and I must say that some of the songs here seem unusually well-written for this band. The lead-in track, ʽDeny Allʼ, is a powerfully desperate rocker with expressive lead guitar work (particularly Visser's little «siren lines» in between the verses); but Peter gets to shine even better on ʽSemaphoreʼ and the title track, combining and merging all sorts of styles, from power-pop to dream-pop to acid psy­chedelia, whatever the moment calls for.

It is true that getting rid of the «endless imitator» status is a difficult task. It took me only a couple listens, for instance, to understand the heavy debt that ʽMossieʼ owes to ʽI Want You (She's So Heavy)ʼ, or that the "blame it on yourself, blame it on the state you're in..." part of ʽChange4Meʼ is fundamentally ripped off Radiohead's ʽBlack Starʼ ("blame it on the black star, blame it on the falling sky...")  — and I am quite convinced that a couple more equally meticu­lous listens would bring out more and more of these derivations. But the important thing is not that these songs continue to lack originality — the important thing is that they sound like crafted pop songs, not like spontaneous indie rock rants; and since Carol van Dyk is not Joni Mitchell and Peter Visser is not Van Morrison, I'd rather take crafted pop songs from them, any time of day, than raw, bleeding, boring confessions.

The album's centerpiece is the lengthy ʽCallingʼ, which alone occupies more than a quarter of this fairly short LP — with lengthy setups, effect-laden guitar drones, and slowest tempos all around, it wants to be some sort of anthemic-psychedelic masterpiece in the style of The Bends (which, incidentally, I have already mentioned in connection with ʽBlack Starʼ — somebody must have been on an early Radiohead kick), but there's no way Bettie Serveert would have been able to pull off a nine-minute track convincingly: Visser is their only instrumentalist to whom you might want to pay attention, and his function on this vessel, slowly sailing through the marmalade skies and tangerine oceans, is largely atmospheric.

Nevertheless, despite all the flaws, The Pharmacy Of Love still gets a thumbs up from me. The band's transition from «indie-ramblers» to «pop-rockers» has been carried out with style and in­telligence, and has managed to bring down the «boredom» and «pretense» parameters to tolerable levels. No, it probably will not earn Carol van Dyk any extra respect and admiration from you if you have not been able to generate that admiration earlier — but you know, if an indie rock album produced in 2010 does not cause irritation, it is already quite an achievement all by itself. And if an indie rocker makes his/her influences so utterly transparent, and it still does not cause any irritation... well, that sort of makes the album a masterpiece in its own way.

Bettie Serveert: Bare Stripped Naked

BETTIE SERVEERT: BARE STRIPPED NAKED (2006)

1) Roadmovies; 2) Hell = Other People; 3) Love & Learn; 4) Brain-Tag; 5) Storm; 6) The Rope; 7) All The Other Fish; 8) What They Call Love; 9) Painted Word; 10) 2nd Time; 11) Hell = Other People (alt. version); 12) Certainlie.

I doubt that this severely ungrammatical title (should have at least put a couple commas in there to make it look like a thesaurus excerpt) brought Bettie Serveert any extra incidental popularity from porn surfers; nor does Carol's huge, decidedly non-porn face on the album sleeve count as an adequately sexy reflection of the title. Actually, I think that by this time it must have been clear to the band that nothing whatsoever would bring them extra incidental popularity from any target group. So they simply resigned their fates into Carol's hands — for all I know, Bare Stripped Naked is more like a Carol van Dyk solo album with occasional guest spots from Bettie Serveert members rather than a «proper» BS product.

Other than the last track, ʽCertainlieʼ, a slow indie rocker in classic Neil Young style, all the songs here are indeed «stripped naked», with little or no electric guitar, putting Carol, her singing and acoustic playing up front. Right from the start, Bettie Serveert had always vied for the title of «most introspective and psychologically oriented» indie band on the planet (or, at least, in Hol­land), but on Bare Stripped Naked, melody and harmony are officially relegated to background support — there is no way one can like the record without being a focused devotee of Carol van Dyke and her «bride of Lou Reed» femme fatale fling.

Actually, scrap the «Lou Reed» association; most of these songs do not sound much like Lou in any of his periods. They sound like... like some amateur's sorry attempt to make a bunch of art Lieder in the indie rock idiom, or something. Peter Hammill used to get away with this due to his poetic gift and powerful vocal presence, but Carol van Dyk is not even close to that league in any of those respects. She is not even in a particularly decent vocal form here — croaking and blee­ting her way in a completely anti-Private Suit manner, maybe in an attempt to introduce some «spontaneity» and «naturalness», but let us not forget that shitting one's pants is also an act that is both spontaneous and natural, and yet we do not usually think of such qualities of that particular act as possessing a redeeming value.

At most, I could comment on one of these songs, so let us make it ʽHell = Other Peopleʼ — clear­ly, it was of particular importance to Carol, since it is presented here in no less than two different versions, just like George Harrison's ʽIsn't It A Pityʼ on All Things Must Pass. Melodically, it is trite and unmemorable, and the vocal melody for the verses is taken straight from Dylan's ʽYou're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Goʼ (took me a while to extract that link from the back of my mind, but back of one's mind is where it must have come from — it's perfectly plausible that Carol would be spinning Blood On The Tracks a million times to get in the mood for this album, and you don't play jokes with your subconscious). Lyrically, it wants to enlighten us on the issue of Carol's relationship with somebody who is "a 5 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, sharper than a broken nail", but ends up sounding like a moron, and the singer ends up sounding like a double moron for taking up with him in the first place. And the two different arrangements vary in that the second one is... more fully produced, with harder percussion, glossier vocal mix, and more piano. Something like that. Sounds exciting? It's the best there is.

I cannot bring myself to hate any of the Bettie Serveert albums, because I've always respected Carol's willingness to keep it all under control and not go over the top with barf-inducing histryonics à la Conor Oberst. However, Bare Stripped Naked is such a thoroughly misguided idea that I have come quite close to a state of hatred. There is nothing wrong in stripping naked if there is something worth showing underneath; but this record, in reality, is just as much of a sty­listic put-on as any other of their albums. Take the difference between ʽLucy In The Sky With Diamondsʼ and John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, and there you have the real meaning of the «stripped naked» metaphor. Here, all we have is Peter Visser only getting to play a wailing elec­tric solo on the last track, when it's much too late and your mood has been hopelessly spoiled by wasting so much time on a failed effort. Thumbs down.

PS. For the sake of trivia, there is an acoustic remake of ʽBrain Tagʼ from Palomine, which only makes me sicker still because are we supposed to think that track was some sort of «classic» in its own right to deserve this Subtle Artistic Treatment? Goddammit, people, you have to earn the right to go «unplugged», unless you were unplugged right from the start. Acoustic versions of bad electric songs? Only in a hellish indie nightmare.

Bettie Serveert: Attagirl

BETTIE SERVEERT: ATTAGIRL (2004)

1) Dreamaniacs; 2) Attagirl; 3) Don't Touch That Dial!; 4) Greyhound Song; 5) You've Changed; 6) Versace; 7) 1 Off Deal; 8) Hands Off; 9) Staying Kind; 10) Lover I Don't Have To Love.

An irresponsible reviewer like myself should have found a very easy way to shrug off an album like this — simply by saying that no album that features a Bright Eyes cover deserves a review, period, let alone a positive review. But for the sake of self-improvement, let us assume that I am not myself today, so, in a far more responsible manner, I have to point out that ʽLover I Don't Have To Loveʼ was one of the few listenable numbers on Lifted, and that any Conor Oberst song would automatically sound better anyway if done by Carol van Dijk. Because Carol can at least play it intricately, mystery-woman-style, whereas Conor Oberst is simply a guy that deserves being put out of his misery on the spot, whenever he opens his mouth. (Okay, make it «the artistic reflection of Conor Oberst», to avoid unrequired ambiguities).

In any case, regardless of how artistically embarrassing it is for a band much older, better, and at least more experienced than Bright Eyes to cover Bright Eyes, that is only one last track on an album that is quite uneven, but occasionally still charming and/or catchy. Shorter and less ambi­tious than Log 22, it is another mix of «classic indie-rock» Bettie Serveert with their Private Suit incarnation, so it's got a little for everyone, but not a lot for anyone, unless you adore their guitar posturing stuff and their moody escapades equally.

I will probably settle for the moody escapades: ʽDreamaniacsʼ is a successful art-pop creation where bouncy rhythmics, meteor showers of electronic bleeps, and ambient strings mesh well with Carol's lyrical message — "though my feet are on the ground, my head is on a cloud", as she pleads with her imaginary lover to take it easy on her ("don't give up on me, dreamaniacs don't aim to please"). The title track is even better, with its smoky lounge atmosphere and a streak of weepiness culminating in the bitter-ironic hook of "attagirl!" We never get the details, but Carol's "it's you and me and the Devil makes three" is an uneasy line all the same, and the arrangement of the song makes it work, although arguably it works even better when totally stripped, on an acou­stic demo version that is appended as a bonus to some of the CD editions.

The third highlight of the album is ʽVersaceʼ, where the band falls for the latest indie trends and explores the risky world of electronic dance-pop, but with surprisingly effective results — the bass groove and various keyboard overdubs set a ghostly melancholic mood, while Carol adopts her most seductive tone (the one which allows breaking into falsetto when necessary). However, the irony and need for self-deflation are not forgotten, either: on their own, the lyrics would be just a trite collection of «broken heart» clichés, but the repetitive mantra "Versace... Versace... Versace" consolidating the hookline, the song becomes more of a self-conscious parody on the «ennui syndrome of the rich and prosperous». Pretty cool, considering that it was their first experiment with this kind of style.

With the addition of a couple more inventive mixes (e.g. «swampy» slide guitars with «Eastern» strings on ʽGrehound Song), Attagirl is, at the very least, entertainingly diverse, even if it has its share of forgettable throwaways as well (ʽHands Offʼ — fast, look-at-me-I'm-so-full-of-energy pop-rocker whose main purpose seems to be to remind us that they are still a «rock» band and can kick ass any time they want to; but I don't think it's really true). Since nobody really gave a damn about a bunch of aging rockers from Holland by 2004, the album got almost no press, and what little it got was fairly cruel — but I suppose such was the inevitable cost of being originally over­rated and overpraised: few things in this world can be as pitiable as a formerly overappreciated indie-rock band still trying to raise sand in a dog-eat-dog environment. But honestly, even with­out any pity or condescension, Attagirl deserves a modest thumbs up on the whole, and we will try to overlook the Bright Eyes incident because, well, everybody is entitled to a tasteless blunder every now and then. Just don't do it again.

Bettie Serveert: Log 22

BETTIE SERVEERT: LOG 22 (2003)

1) Wide Eyed Fools; 2) Smack; 3) Have A Heart; 4) Captain Of Maybe; 5) De Diva; 6) Given; 7) Not Coming Down; 8) Cut 'n' Dried; 9) Log 22; 10) White Dogs; 11) Certainlie; 12) The Ocean, My Floor; 13) The Love-In.

After Private Suit had changed their image, but failed to make them superstars, Bettie Serveert took a two-year break — only to return with an album that sounded almost like a retreat to their original image. Almost, because Dollo's law says that you cannot really go back to the exact same state as you were, so Log 22 is still notoriously «artsier» than Palomine, and for Bettie, this means «probably better». Its major problem may be excessive length — a whole hour — but on the other hand, some of its better songs are its longer pieces, where the real juicy pieces of musi­cal meat are to be found in the jam sections, so...

But all in due time. In reality, the band explores quite a few different styles here. The first song is technically one of those stream-of-consciousness rants from Carol that used to be pretty boring, but now they have mastered the art of funky rhythmics and economical, broken-up strings of notes as riffs (somebody must have been on a Television kick recently), which makes the song's verse melody more interesting than the far more generic alt-rock all-out-loud chorus (that one could just as well be produced by the likes of Avril Lavigne). Then the second song is the brief, two-minute-long explosive punch of ʽSmackʼ — distorted guitars, pop hooks, whistling, and a Weezer atti­tude that we'd never heard from this band so far. Then the third song is... well, looks like a good old draggy B.S. shuffle, but this time, all smothered in horns, in search for some sort of Van Morrison-style epicness. Not particularly inspiring, but interesting.

All of which means that the extended holiday period got them prepped up for «search» mode, and that is at least better than wallow in the original formula, which was boring from the start and would only get more boring when put on endless repeat. The album still sags in the middle, with ʽDe Divaʼ being particularly irritating — going from jangle to distortion and back while Carol delivers a lengthy pretentious rant on herself as "a walking inconsistency". The song wants to be a confessional, but in reality it is self-aggrandizing for no good reason, and I get no extra respect for Carol just from learning that she is supposed to be "De Diva in denial", even presuming that I have guessed correctly what is meant by that (and if I haven't, it's not my fault).

But somewhere around the title track, which manages to transcend generic alt-rock with some clever guitar tricks from Peter, things begin to get better, and the album arguably reaches its peak with the two jam-extended epics — ʽWhite Dogsʼ and ʽThe Ocean, My Floorʼ. The former is one of the band's most obvious tributes to the Velvet Underground (Carol once again sings in her best Lou Reed impression and plays all the right rhythm chords from the Lou Reed songbook), but it honestly sounds like the band is having good clean fun, and Visser plays his heart out on the ex­tended section, totally getting in the groove as if the spirit of Lou himself, or of Robert Quine, at the least, had suddenly descended on him.

As for ʽThe Oceanʼ, its final section is also an extended jam, but carried out from a completely different angle — psychedelic rather than avantgarde, with a complex pattern of overdubs that speeds past you like a multi-colored mushroom field. This is the band's first serious experiment with «trippy» music, and while it is completely unoriginal, it works surprisingly well, showing a level of hi-tech sophistication that the early albums did not even hint at. For about four minutes, the mushrooms explode and the acid flows over our heads like crazy. This could have been a fine coda to the album — but then, in a ʽHer Majestyʼ-style paroxysm of self-deflating, they prefer to round things up with a self-consciously silly retro-disco throwaway that they title ʽThe Love-Inʼ: two and a half minutes of «body muzak» for the nostalgic proto-hipster.

Consequently, the album deserves a thumbs up despite its more than obvious flaws — upon first listen, I hated it for the excessive length and also because it seemed to turn them back in the direc­tion of Dust Bunnies. But it is more like a synthesis of Private Suit with Dust Bunnies and a whole lot of additional approaches. It is not cohesive, it makes relatively little sense and is not at all innovative, but there's also something to be said about general smartness, unpredictability, and professionalism — particularly professionalism, which seems to have properly arrived at the band's disposal on Private Suit and is not really going anywhere, unless they all go on a heroin binge or start touring in support of local politicians.

Bettie Serveert: Private Suit

BETTIE SERVEERT: PRIVATE SUIT (2000)

1) Unsound; 2) Satisfied; 3) Private Suit; 4) Mariachi Souls; 5) ReCall; 6) Auf Wiedersehen; 7) Sower And Seeds; 8) White Tales; 9) John Darmy; 10) My Fallen Words; 11) Healer.

Finally, upon their fourth try, they manage to get it nearly right — or, at least, as right as possible for a band deprived of original vision or melodic genius. Private Suit is the first Bettie album that I would gladly recommend to anyone, regardless of one's general attitude towards the «indie spirit» of the 1990s. And not just for the sexy album cover, either, even though the sexy album cover is already a good hint at some changes to come.

They went to PJ Harvey's producer with this one, and whether or not this was what made the difference, the sound of Private Suit is a radical departure from the old style. Suddenly, the songs begin to come together rather than fall apart; the sound becomes softer and glossier, more «pop» than «rock», but in a pleasant, tasteful way; new instruments, like lotsa keyboards, make a welcome entrance to cheer up the sound. But most importantly — this is the album on which Carol van Dijk finally learns to sing, or, at least, decides to learn to sing. Or, even more accurate­ly, this is an album on which she adopts a slightly more feminine image (check the album cover again for immediate visual reference!) and engages in a little smooth acting, instead of simply spitting it all out like a Riot Grrrl aficionado.

Already the first song, ʽUnsoundʼ, shows signs of all these changes, and it would be hard to believe that we are listening to the same Bettie Serveert. Lively tempo, swirling organs, guitars that sound more like R.E.M. than Pavement, and a singing voice that is probably an octave lower than Carol's usual style — the "it's good to be unsound, uh-uh" chorus sounds like Lou Reed. No screeching or drowning the listener in pools of distortion, but still plenty of energy and conviction, even if the actual hooks as such are still rather weak (but the shrill Visser guitar solo at the end, rising above the general level of the song and unexpectedly pulling it straight up into the strato­sphere, is top-notch).

For ʽSatisfiedʼ, they choose a different strategy — more psychedelic, with droning guitars, mul­tiple layers of mood-setting keyboards, melancholic cellos, and a vocal delivery that aims straight for the subconscious (the «nasal-somnambulant» type, with overdubs that have Carol engaging in a dialog with herself in the chorus); again, not a «great» song, perhaps, but surely an intriguing one, worth revisiting at least to make sure exactly how much you have missed — a sentiment that was consistently lacking for the first three albums.

Only the third track (title one) finally sounds like good old Bettie: ragged-nervous strumming, quavery, shaking, arrogant voice, and noise-a-plenty in the outro section. In other words, the usual under-written borefest, albeit even that one is still given extra support from a string section. But guess what — it is the only trace of good old Bettie on the entire album. Everything that fol­lows once again obeys the new laws, which demand clear production, well-rehearsed singing, and musical diversity, from the acoustic folk balladry of ʽMariachi Soulsʼ to the Cure-like mope-pop of ʽReCallʼ to the music hall piano waltzing of ʽMy Fallen Wordsʼ to the ultimate conclusion of ʽHealerʼ, which has a little bit of everything (some post-punk, some rhythm & blues, some art rock) and, for once, makes «Bettie Serveert-style depression» a reality.

But the best song of all is ʽSower And Seedsʼ, where the lead singer even tries on a bit of world-weary falsetto for good measure, and the combination of guitar distortion, organ, and that oddly drugged-out voice comes very close to striking out some real magic. Perhaps they were going for a Portishead emulation or something — anyway, it's not tremendously original, but it sounds convincingly tragic. The puzzle of it all, of course, is that songs like ʽSatisfiedʼ, ʽSower And Seedsʼ, and ʽHealerʼ all give us a completely new artistic philosophy — Bettie does not really serve any more, but goes into depressed, deeply wounded seclusion instead, and somehow it becomes her more than when she was all raving and ranting on us. Of course, that might simply be my ugly male chauvinist side speaking up — but then again, I've never pretended liking female rock acts merely for the fact of their lead characters showing «strong personalities», since «strong» by itself never guarantees «emotionally or intellectually interesting». Private Suit, on the other hand, is Bettie Serveert's most emotionally and intellectually interesting album up to that particular moment, and it guarantees the band a far more assured and probably un-retractable thumbs up than Dust Bunnies.

Bettie Serveert: Dust Bunnies

BETTIE SERVEERT: DUST BUNNIES (1997)

1) Geek; 2) Link; 3) Musher; 4) Dust Bunny; 5) What Friends; 6) Misery Galore; 7) Story In A Nutshell; 8) Sugar The Pill; 9) Rudder; 10) Pork And Beans; 11) Fallen Foster; 12) Co-Coward; 13) Heaven.

Who's got the floor? The Rev. Stephen Th. Erlewine from the All-Music Guide has got the floor: «Instead of developing or refining their sound», says the Reverend in his brief, but stern assess­ment of Dust Bunnies, «Bettie Serveert stay within their self-imposed boundaries, crafting small, simple jangle-pop songs that never rock too hard or sound too soft». And hear this: «Dust Bun­nies... doesn't necessarily return the band to the heights of Palomine. Musically, Dust Bunnies is no different than its two predecessors, and the group's lack of development is a little bit eerie...» Am I the only one to be a little bit confused here? One one hand, we have «the heights of Palo­mine», implying that the band's third album is a «low» in comparison, but on the other hand, musically, it is no different than Palomine. Hmm. Given my own experience as a review writer, I'd say these hard-to-resolve self-contradictions usually get written when the writer has nothing to say whatsoever. But if it is a band like Bettie Serveert we're talking about, I would think it's only natural. Let us not judge the Reverend too harshly. He probably had approximately 50,000 re­views scheduled for that day anyway.

In any case, I only mentioned this since my own reaction turns out to be surprisingly different: Dust Bunnies is the very first Bettie Serveert album that I can sit through without being consis­tently bored out of my skull. Indeed, it is «lighter», and also «tighter», than its two predecessors, as if the band had finally embarked on a definite journey to becoming a normal pop-rock band, rather than retaining their carefully styled «indie kids» image. What this means in objective terms: (a) the songs become shorter, so that they are now able to cram 13 of them into 41 minutes, rather than 11 into 49 minutes, as it used to be; (b) the songs frequently pick up the tempo, meaning that even if you can't memorize one, you can at least tap your foot to it (and it is psychologically important, no matter what the serious introspective types tell you with scorn); (c) some of the songs actually have distinctive power-pop riffs — not amazingly great riffs, but actual melodic lines that, you know, explore harmonic space rather than simply exist in it.

So it is not at all in the musical sphere where there has been no change; rather it is in the artistic sphere, since all the songs are still subjugated to the idea that Bettie Serveert is, above everything else, a platform for Carol van Dijk to materialize her endless rants about everything that's wrong in the world today — mainly guys behaving like dumbasses, dickheads, or chickenshits, but every once in a while she also takes on the music industry (ʽRudderʼ). Unfortunately, she still makes no effort to introduce even a little character-defining personality to her singing, but since the basic approach is to be tighter than usual, at least some of the songs now feature marginally catchy chorus hooks (ʽWhat Friends?ʼ, which also has one of the album's best riffs and could therefore qualify for the «best song» competition).

Other quality choices include ʽSugar The Pillʼ, written and performed in Lou Reed style, a per­cussion-free «urban ballad» with a laid-back, but bitter atmosphere, and probably Carol's only exceptional bit of vocal artistry on this record; ʽPork And Beansʼ, a jangly rocker à la Pretenders that seems to be about the unhealthy relationships between highbrow stars and lowlife admirers, but we've come a long way from Ray Davies to allow ourself to be so unambiguous in our un­derstanding; and, continuing the already established tradition, ʽHeavenʼ, the album's last track, is a softer, moodier ballad that shows Carol's «vulnerable» side (or «childish» side, if you will) and is somehow more charming than all the rest of the album put together.

In between these songs, there is still plenty of tunes that are completely non-descript (I mean, the draggy sound of something like ʽMusherʼ fully justifies its title), but regardless of that, this is a big musical step forward for the band. If critics at the time, like the Reverend quoted above, ten­ded to shoot 'em down, it could have really been triggered by overrating them right from the start: Palomine pretended to more depth and «authenticity of feeling», and felt right at home with the indie aesthetics, but ultimately, it was unoriginal, confused, and boring, and the realization of that must have caught up with the critics right by the time of Dust Bunnies — an album that is much less boring, yet the critical mass imagined it as more boring, go figure. Anyway, a mild thumbs up here, although the band is still growing up and only beginning to cut its teeth in the standard «art-pop» format.

Bettie Serveert: Lamprey

BETTIE SERVEERT: LAMPREY (1995)

1) Keepsake; 2) Ray Ray Rain; 3) D. Feathers; 4) Re-Feel-It; 5) 21 Days; 6) Cybor *D; 7) Tell Me, Sad; 8) Crutches; 9) Something So Wild; 10) Totally Freaked Out; 11) Silent Spring.

Now this album, I am afraid to say, does not seem to have stood even a short time test at all. Po­sitively viewed upon release and still occasionally riding on the coattails of that first reputational burst, now it seems like a prime example of «generic mid-1990s indie» — lots of bravura, he­roic pos­turing, volume, distortion, and angry, self-righteous vocals, behind all of which there is no musical substance whatsoever. Reusing, perusing, and abusing musical baggage accumulated by their betters without putting their own distinct spin on it — Lamprey is the sort of album which you'd imagine a band like Sonic Youth capable of writing and recording on-the-spot, except they'd be too embarrassed to release it (and, for that matter, there is very little in this world that Sonic Youth would be embarrassed of releasing).

What is so much worse, through all of it Carol van Dijk wails, rants, and splutters as if she really had something to say, but all she really says is the same old "I can't explain", only dressed up in pseudo-metaphors and allegories whose sound is clumsy and whose meaning is zilch. Example: "Go down inside of me / There's still a part that sees the first time / You've opened up my eyes / Completely self absorbed / What are we waiting for / Ferociously, you never know just why" (ʽ21 Daysʼ). Feel free to correct me, but I happen to think that these are some really bad lyrics out there, don't you think? And there's more... so much more...

Unfortunately, this time around even Peter Visser does not help out, because way too much space is given over to verbal raving and ranting; most of the time he is just weaving his jangle or mini­malistic lead lines in and out of Carol's rhythm playing. There is an inspired guitar break at the end of ʽD. Feathersʼ, a song for which they also drag out the Mellotron (or, at least, something that imitates the Mellotron), so that its coda becomes sonically similar to early King Crimson, and a few other tracks as well feature maniacal leads from the man, so that the process of listen­ing eventually becomes the process of impatiently waiting around for whether or not Visser is given a chance to solo at the end — offering a chance at redemption — or not — condemning the song to immediate death at the stake.

ʽRay Ray Rainʼ is the only track here that indirectly points to a brighter and snappier future for the band: poorly produced (the vocals are muffled and strangled in between the guitar parts), but upbeat, poppy, and shiny in a cool mid-1960s fashion, as if somebody took a whiff on inspiration from Revolver in addition to all the Velvet Undergroundisms. I am also somewhat partial to the album closer ʽSilent Springʼ which is at least different — after a long string of those crunchy, but meaningless rock grinders its acoustic guitars and echoey vocals are a nice change of pace. It is also the only track on the album on which Carol actually sings in a traditional understanding of the term, and does so admirably well.

Everything else is pretty much awful, with the major culprits being ʽCrutchesʼ (the "let me down, let it bubble all around me!" part could succeed if the rest of the song actually worked towards that anguished emotional release, but it doesn't, and the protagonist just comes across as a phony, capricious whiner) and the interminable ʽTell Me, Sadʼ, which takes its cue from a not-so-obscure Beatles reference ("rocking horse people out on a limb..."), never really figures out what to do with it, and burdens our conscience with some sort of problem ("tell me, Sad, what's wrong with that...") whose very existence is never confirmed — five minutes of almost literally trying to pro­duce a meaningful something out of virtually nothing.

A more detailed scrutiny might be able to extract bits and pieces — a decent bassline here and there, a minor vocal hook somewhere on the periphery — but on the whole, Lamprey is just a waste of talent, and I have a really hard time thinking why anybody over 18 years old would ever want to listen to it once more. Then again, judging by the seemingly fading memories of it, no­body really does these days. Thumbs down.

Bettie Serveert: Palomine

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.

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