The mighty Deus return after a hiatus of 5 years with a new lineup and 12 big, brash, beautiful pieces of music. Opening with the epic build of 'Bad Timing' and the pop sensibilities of '7 days, 7 weeks' then holding you firm until the insistent urgency of 'Sun Ra' and the genteelly elegant 'Nothing Really Ends', the whole album can be defined in three small words: worth...the ...wait. V2 Records. 2005.
Review by Greg Prato
Since nearly seven years had passed since dEus had issued an album (The Ideal Crash dropped in 1999, and it wasn't exactly easy to locate in the U.S.), it was certainly understandable for fans to figure that the band had quietly packed it in. This proved not to be the case though, as longtime members Tom Barman (vocals, guitar) and Klaas Janzoons (violin, keyboards) assembled a whole new dEus lineup, which includes former members of Soulwax and Chris Whitley's band. Pocket Revolution finally arrived in 2006 (the album was first made available in 2005 as an import, however), and once more, the group offers an album that refuses to be pinned down to a single style. It's easy to pick out modern-day bands which sound comparable, such as the Coldplay-ish "7 Days, 7 Weeks" and the Eels-ish "If You Don't Get What You Want," but dEus has been around a heck of a lot longer. Other standouts include the title track which alternates between calm verses and a grandiose choruses, as well as a tribute to jazz visionary Sun Ra titled, uh, "Sun Ra." Despite the extended break between albums, dEus picks up right where they left off with Pocket Revolution.
dEUS
Pocket Revolution
[V2; 2005]
Rating: 7.8
The members of dEUS named their band after God, which takes no small amount of chutzpah. It also sets the bar kind of high. I imagine that if God made music it'd be pretty special, maybe the kind of thing that would physically blow your mind out your ear or herald the Earth's final destruction. Think about how disappointing it would be if God was on the bill and you got a milquetoast singer-songwriter or boring lap-pop.
dEUS' music isn't godly, but in the second half of the 90s they released three very good albums that weren't easily pigeonholed. The first two in particular hop from genre to genre, while 1999's The Ideal Crash took all their manic eccentricity and channeled it into a slightly more accessible package. Six years later, Pocket Revolution continues that evolution with a sharp, direct attack that undoubtedly has more commercial potential than anything they've released before. This comes at the expense of the messy charm that made their early music so enjoyably chaotic, but anyone who originally liked them for the Frank Zappa, Charles Mingus, Don Cherry, and Captain Beefheart affinities they once flew like a flag won't be totally disappointed, as their music still has those elements. They're just packaged more subtly.
Case in point is "Cold Sun of Circumstance", a wildly rhythmic song stuffed with faux blues riffage and frenetic vocals. The main thing separating it from the craziness of In a Bar, Under the Sea is the band's restrained production, which has a smoothing effect on all of the material. The proggier songs are held back a bit by the approach-- "What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)" in particular features a monster rhythm track topped with Beefheartian interjections and could have had the same explosive quality of "Fell Off the Floor, Man" with looser engineering-- but the band's pop side is finally given full flower, so it's a trade-off.
In the past, songs like "Little Arithmetics" were almost token bones thrown to the European singles charts, but "7 Days, 7 Weeks" is the closest thing to a sure hit they've written. Tom Barman's double-tracked vocals throw off the song's cloak of heavy ambient keyboard, the mellow verses abetted by e-bowed guitar and mellotron. It's catchy in the same way R.E.M. once were-- not in your face with its hooks, just very precise about how they're placed. The band also embraces vocal harmonies whole hog on Pocket Revolution, a step that hugely enriches songs like "Include Me Out", which comes across as sort of a half-way point between Pink Floyd and late-60s folk-pop. And then there's closer "Nothing Really Ends", a which borders on lounge (in a good way) with its cocktail drums, vibes and sturdy, crooner-worthy melody.
So dEUS have settled down with age and returned from their hiatus as a more craft-conscious, restrained rock band. I'd be lying if I said I liked them more this way than I did for In a Bar..., but as transitions go, they've made the leap to greater maturity with a lot of grace. Pocket Revolution is an accomplished re-introduction to one of Belgium's greatest exports.
-Joe Tangari, October 11, 2005
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