| CD REVIEW Black Cassette |
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Band : Black Cassette Focal point of this somewhat psychedelic Alternative Rock band, is one Sjoerd Bruil, singer/ songwriter/ guitarist whom moved from his native Holland to Antwerp during 2001 in order to be able to play a kind of music which, to his taste, was not enough heard in his homeland. In 2004 he joined the ranks of Sukilove, and by mid 2005 he was found putting a set of songs with a completely different sound (using Blues, Captain Beefheart, Prince, and PJ Harvey as inspirations) to tape with a 4-track recorder, in his attic room. His Sukilove buddy (and former Metal Molly member), bassist/ backing singer Pascal Deweze liked what Sjoerd had him listen to, and together with drummer/ backing singer and occasional Casio organ player Jeroen Stevens (also known from I Love Sarah), they founded the band Black Cassette in early 2006, playing gigs after only a fortnight of rehearsals. A self-titled 5- track EP was released in July 2007, with several events as a result. For starters, Sjoerd was invited to sing a duet with Gregory Frateur on Dez Mona's 2007 album Moments Of dejection Or Despondency. Mid 2008 Sjoerd joined the line-up of Tim Vanhamel's live band as extra guitarist and backing singer, and with BC as support the bands played the major Summer festivals in Belgium (Werchter, PukkelPop, Marktrock, Dour, Dranouter, Lokerse Feesten, Maanrock, Feest i/h Park), with further gigs following until the end of the year. Also, the complete line-up of BC (alongside Elko Blijweert and Ben Younes) was incorporated into Pawlowski, the new band by Mauro Pawlowski. As a side-kick thing, Sjoerd and Blijweert occasionally operate ad dj's under the monicker of The B-Team. In 2010 Sjoerd and Pascal Deweze started the new band Broken Glass Heroes with Tim Vanhamel. The band's official debut full-length was recorded at Antwerp's Studio Jezus, where the likes of Sukilove, Broken Glass Heroes, Creature With The Atom Brain, Mauro & The Grooms, and Tom Pintens recorded albums in the past. In order to be able to pay for the studio time, Sjoerd volunteered to have medicins tested on him during the first part of this year. Soon after he signed with V2 Records. Producer on duty was the band's own Pascal Deweze, whom not only has a good feeling for what the band needs, but also already has production credits to his name for albums by The Van Jets, The Sore Losers, and Galacticos. Obviously, with the limited monetary sources available, Pascal was the right choice, as I guess another producer might've been tempted to give the guitar a far too heavy sound, in accordance to the band's live intensity. Which would've changed the band's sound on album completely, really...because where there's a certain rawness in the band's music, it is also in the first place sober, and focused on the vocals and syncopated rhythms. Hard to describe really, and the best advice I can give any reader, is to check for themselves what the band's sound is like. If you don't feel like checking out the band in live conditions,and don't wanna go over to the record store to find out whether they hold the album for a listening session, log onto (www.) myspace.com/sjoerdmusic, where the band posted the two first songs off the album. Which they also posted the more acoustic “Necklace”, because then you would have had an even more complete picture, but beggars can't be choosers. Perhaps you have enough with the 30-second samples usually made available by your trusted online sales sites (try Amazon, why don't you?)? Personally, I'm not too hot about this band at the moment. Although there's nice alternation in the songs' intensities, I'm not always into Sjoerd's vocal stylings...more specifically not in the calmer passages/ songs, because he sounds a bit too lame to me there. But hey...I'm sure you have no need for me to criticize that, if you happen to be into that style of singing yourself. The point is, there's good music here, and on a majority of the songs (11 in total for an album length of 42 minutes) the vocals come out just right for the mood! 81/100 Tony. |
