As usual, I arrive after the fuss because of a hellish morning; Fridays always hammer me, I wonāt say what. Josi, I already told you, you were perfect in the review, as usual, even if itās very good (and donāt give credit to others when itās all yours :)). For me, this is a good album, which I bought, which I will listen to, which I will keep jealously since I adore the band in question, but nothing more. A few highs and too many lows. I know I might come across as the one who... "aah, I knew them way back when they first came out... ahhh, thereās nothing like the first album," which is indeed annoying, but Iām sorry, my dEUS, the ones I fell in love with, are elsewhere.
Thereās a passage in your review, just a few words, that say it all: "more focused on systematizing the endless ideas of the leader than (de)centering on exquisite invention." If before what came out was the perfect assembly of countless ideas, a result of the continuous confrontation- clash between multiple minds, letās never forget that almost all past and present members of dEUS have started a thousand projects and bands, while now the Barista just sits back contentedly. I used to be able to recognize the moment when Ward or Trouvé or, even better, Carlens chimed in, refining and diverting Barmanās "visions," improving them. Now Iām left with pieces like "7 days 7 weeks," or "What We Talk About," bland, lost in nothingness. Even the little rock of "If You Don't Get What You Want," while greatly improved by the heavier rearrangement with guitars (Tim Vanhamel is there), is too normal, too standard. Think of "Via," "Gimme The Heat," "Secret Hell," "Great American Nude," or the crazy "Divebomb Djingle" (and how many more could I name), the way they would cradle you in their apparent normality, then -boom- the jolt, the twist, the āI skipped the part about love,ā the dissonance. The violin played like that, looped, songs recorded on a phone, the three voices of Morticiachair or that genius idea of "Fell off the floor man."
Now only Barman is heard; it's no coincidence that in the most successful song of the album, "Sun Ra" - this is indeed dEUS - all these things are there, along with Stefās beautiful voice. Even on "The Ideal Crash," although more conventional than the first two, you could feel more thinking heads; even the electronics used were perfectly blended with the "dEUS style" ("Everybody's weird" - "Dream Sequence #1"), here itās just background, a leftover from Barmanās experiences in the Magnus project, a personal indulgence, thus totally outside of dEUS. With all the mitigating circumstances: Mommens and Ward leaving in the middle of the tour, Pawlowski trying to patch things up, but itās evident that in a few months he didnāt have the time to put in his two cents, or couldnāt. That said, "Bad Timing" (what a finale!) and "Sun Ra" give me goosebumps; when I donāt shave, I look like a kiwi, stunning.
