record reviews:

Bettie Serveert

Bare Stripped Naked

(Minty Fresh)

 

Bare Stripped Naked is a very bare, naked album.  Bettie Serveert’s music is, for the most part on this CD, very quiet and unassuming.  Carol Van Dyk has a voice that’s part Jewel, part Katharine Whalen from the Squirrel Nut Zippers, all vulnerable and yet strong at the same time.

 

This album starts and ends with long songs, although track one is softer and slower and track twelve is more rocking.  That track, “Certainlie,” has a southern rock thing going on.  At first, the lyrics sound like they could be from a Jewel album, but then the chorus comes along: “How can you feel when you feel like you feel?”  Jewel is never that confounding.  But there are other tracks where the words make you think, like tracks two and eleven (different versions), “Hell is Other People,” where the chorus is that, and then “To hell with other people.”  Strong words from the Netherlands.

 

Carol doesn’t exactly sound foreign, but some of the songs have that funky, foreign thing going on.  “Painted World” has some background synths that could be straight out of the Legend of Zelda game for SNES.  But the nice thing about Bettie Serveert is that you can tell they are an ensemble.  It’s not just about Van Dyk’s vocals; there’s a whole band there to back her up, and on some of the tracks, a minute can go by without her voice, where you can just enjoy the others in the band (Peter Visser on guitar, Herman Bunskoeke on bass, Martign Blankestign on keys, and Gino Geudens on drums) (aren’t our English names just so boring in comparison?).

 

“All the Other Fish” is a very interesting song, because Van Dyk sings in the rhythm of Johnny Cash, which is not something, I must say, that is accomplished very often by female singers.

 

Bettie Serveert is a sweet mix of soft folk and electronics.  Bare Stripped Naked is a relaxing album, and while it may not make you want to get naked, it will make you want to unwind.

— Amber Henson

www.bettieserveert.com

 

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