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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
dEUS was a band from Belgium that became an international case with
Worst Case Scenario (Island, 1994), thanks to an eclectic range
of material and unpredictable arrangements of
violin, cello, bass clarinet, organ.
Suds And Soda wed the decadent tone and psychedelic dissonance of the
Velvet Underground's Venus In Furs
with the surreal harmonies of the Beatles' I Am The Walrus.
Far from being typical of the band's sound, it was pretty much the exception
to a different rule.
The atmospheric lullaby Jigsaw You (echoes of Tim Buckley, Morphine),
the acoustic weep of Right As Rain,
the jazzy and trip-hoppish WCS (a dejected shuffle with Miles Davis-ian
wails of bass clarinet)
Hotellounge harks back to Tom Waits' smokey nightmares but revised with
crispy guitars and narcolectic singing for the grunge generation.
Great American Nude is a half-spoken and half-growled blues a` la
Captain Beefheart.
The sudden changes in tone, harmony, tempo, instrumentation are not so much
disorienting shocks as carefully-planned narrative devices.
The weakness of dEUS is that songs tend to be thin and fragile, slow and
incoherent. Suds And Soda is pretty much the excetion...
Like its predecessor, In a Bar Under The Sea (Island, 1996) has
moments of sheer genius, but too many weak links.
Fell Off The Floor Man is a funk-blues that exhibits Captain
Beefheart's casual cacophony.
A Shocking Lack Thereof toys with the hallucinated ticking of a clock,
demented vocals and extreme feedback.
Theme From Turnpike is a grotesque jazz deconstruction.
Guilty Pleasures whispers an alienated rosary into a percussive charge
a` la Feelies.
Roses sounds like a ghost dance around a Velvet Underground record.
Mostly, dEUS try to "out-pavement" the
Pavement, and, alas, the results lean towards
the trivial.
Little Arithmetics is a childish litany sung in the tone of
Simon & Garfunkel over a sprightly country-rock rhythm, but
Supermarketsong and Memory Of A Festival are merely easy listening
for the alt-rock generation.
A wealth of cute ideas, sure, but too many songs take forever before they begin
and sometimes... never begin at all.
Compared with those two intriguing puzzles,
The Ideal Crash (Island, 1999) was a major disappointment. The band's
sonic camouflage is greatly reduced and the focus seems to be on pop refrains.
Deus bassist Stef Kamil Carlens became the singer and chief songwriter for
Zita Swoon, a band formed with the rhythm section
from Kiss My Jazz plus guitarist Tom Pintens and saxophonist Benjamin Boutreur.
Everyday I Wear A Greasy Black Feather On My Hat (1995), credited to
Moondog Jr, was their
pop masterpiece. It was followed by atmospheric and less ebullient collections
such as Music Inspired By Sunrise (1997),
I Paint Pictures On A Wedding Dress (1998) and
Plage Tattoo: Circumstances (2000).
Life=A Sexy Sanctuary (2001) sounded like mainstream pop.
Deus' guitarist Rudy Trouve recorded
three albums under the name Kiss My Jazz:
Doc's Place Friday Evening (Knitting Factory, 1996),
The Lost Souls Convention (Heaven Hotel, 1997),
In A Service Station (Heaven Hotel, 1999).
After a hiatus of five years, dEUS returned with a new line-up and
Pocket Revolution (2005). A couple of songs
(If You Don't Get What You Want, Bad Timing) smell like
Heldon, but the rest is poppy fluff.
Vantage Point (2008) and
Keep You Close (2011)
were generous efforts
in a gentle melodic prog-pop style,
but hardly relevant anymore.
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