BETTIE SERVEERT: “Lamprey” (Beggar’s Banquet)

The world is indeed flooded with tuneless, third-rate indie guitar bands drowning in their own mediocrity- but Bettie Serveert are not one of them.

Some believe that being Dutch genetically disbars them from making great rock ‘n’ roll but dam it, this only marks them apart from all those run-of-the windmill combos they’re constantly lumped in with.

And you have to (back)hand it to any band who names themselves after the, eh, legendary tennis queen Bettie Stova!

They may have spent a while lingering in the Nether regions of the pop fraternity but with Lamprey Bettie Serveert are set to reclaim the top seeding which they originally earned with their excellent debut Palomine.

In fact this band are so good it’s enough to make you want to cut your ear off! I first heard them at the Reading Festival a few years ago and was won over game, set and match by the soothing, plaintive vignettes which they served up. Carol Van Dijk’s voice may not be breaking new ground but it’s still capable of transporting you to Nether Netherland while I couldn’t take my eyes off the guitar player as he launched into yet another sporadic, spindly guitar break or the bass player who looked like he had come straight off the set of that mad Japanese series Monkey.

Indeed their new album, recorded in Holland, has a distinctly live feel to it and sounds all the better for it. A quick check in my trusty Chamber’s Dictionary informs me that the title refers to, and I quote, “a genus of cyclostomes that fix themselves to stones by their mouths.” And depending on what way you look on it, this is either an extremely poignant and apposite description of the record’s aesthetic mores . . . or just double Dutch!

Whatever. Van Dijk’s lyrics are simultaneously as simple and as complex as the mostly barbed relationships she sings about. Musically each song follows a pattern; now a gentle, meditative guitar strum, now a manic ragged Crazy Horse maelstrom, with matching rhythm section too. One minute it caresses your ears and heart, the next it leaves you left bruised and reeling around the fountain. ‘Re Feel It’ is a prime example, invoking Neil Young and Kristin Hersh in turn. ‘Totally Freaked Out’ also sees the gold-palated chanteuse summon the Throwing Muse with Van Dijk bellowing out her unapologetic hymn to neurosis: “Totally freaked out in every way/ . . . There’s no fucking reason to get out of this maze/ Believe it or not, I like it this way.”

And if you’ve ever had a friend who you really like but who’s under the thumb of a complete dork, then ‘Something So Wild’ is the song for you. The single ‘Crutches’ is another paean to insecurity and directionlessness but the upbeat guitar hook prevents it from being swept away in the currents of self-pity.

‘Ray Ray Rain’, ‘D Feathers’, ‘Cybor D’: they’re all rigorously introspective but that doesn’t stop them from inviting you into their houses, and making you feel at home and if they do make you want to retreat to your bedroom for a few hours, it’s only so that you can learn the guitar solos!

So don’t believe the gripe, Bettie Serveert are not drowning, but waving.

Nicholas G. Kelly