| CD REVIEW Alamo Race Track |
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Band : Alamo Race Track The origins of this relatively popular Amsterdam based Dutch Alternative Rock act go back to the band Redivider, which won the much coveted Grote Prijs Van Nederland in 1998, released the 2000 album All Dressed Up, played a lot of shows in their native country, and made it onto several national tv shows. In 2001 the band's keyboardist left, and because that brought about a rather big change in their music, the remaining members (lead singer/ guitarist Ralph Mulder, guitarist Leonard Lucieer, bassist David Corel, and drummer Guy Bours) decided to change their band name. As Morning Star the quartet started to record some demos, but the monicker had to be changed because there was already a British band by that name. So, as Alamo Race Track they would go through life henceforth. In early 2002 (shortly after having supported Daryll-Ann), the guys signed to Dutch label Excelsior Recordings, with the Frans Hagenaars produced 2003 debut album Birds At Home (released in September of that year)as first result. Before the album was released the band already played at Dutch festival Noorderslag, gaining rave reviews from the press media. The guys also won an Essent Award for new talent. Upon the album's release the band started its live promotion playing gigs both nationally (festivals done were at the prestigious Lowlands and at Den Haag's Music In My Head) and abroad (Manchester's The City and Glasgow's MusicWorks in the UK among others). The guys were also spotted at Austin, Texas' SxSWby Fargo Records, which led to a licencing deal for the album in France. Upon the French release of the album in 2005, the band toured that country successfully as well, with most shows sold-out. Sophomore album Black Cat John Brown was recorded mid 2006 and released later the same year. With the label's 10th anniversary in mind, a special chamber concert was given at Utrecht's Tivoli, and a video clip of this happening put out on YouTube resulted in over 170,000 people viewing it in less than 2 weeks. Together with the large amount of positive reviews of the album, this translated in fairly nice sales figures. Not only that, but the album made #1 in leading Dutch Pop magazine Oor's alternative hit list De Scherpe kant Van Platenland. It also got ART a spot in the Fine Fine Music tour of 2006, during which the band played at the big Dutch Pop venues alongside Ghost Trucker, Spinvis, Do-The-Undo, and El Pino And the Volunteers. Following an appearance at Noorderslag in early January, ATR spent the rest of that month and February touring abroad (including a completely sold-out 3-week stint through France, and a successful appearance at Antwerp's De Nachten). At the beginning of 2010 ART announced a new Dutch tour, of a different kind: delivering the soundtrack to director Jakop Ahlbom's new theater piece Innenschau, playing the music (parts of which newly composed music by the band) on stage during the play. The theater tour (which ran from February 12 to May 2) sees ART play for the first time with its changed line-up, with Jelte van Andel playing the bass and Robert Buijs playing the drums. Pieces for the theatre presentation were recorded during and after the tour, and added to Unicorn Loves Deer, ART's third album. Which may be the reason why, although ART is known as an Alternative Rock band, the new album has so many acoustics on it! Oh sure, there's 4 songs (“Shake Off The Leaves”, “Records”, “Hypnotised I”, and the album's title track) in which electric guitar (“Records” even has some very nice lap steel guitar) is used to some degree (usually mixed as to not dominate the otherwise organic sounds of acoustic guitar, the occasional banjo (used in a threesome of songs), cello (used in 4 songs), trombone (at least in 2 tracks), and piano/ keyboards (3 or 4 tracks). Still, the compositions have a very nice Pop content, and the vocals (enhanced by harmonic backings) have an occasional weirdness about 'em (check “Word's Sweet Troubles” if you can). There's a catchy feel all over the album which entices one to listen to the album over and over again (if only to analyze its separate musical components). And just to make things a bit different at the end, album closer “Killerlake” sees Mulder backed by a female singer...for whom I've found no credits. What bugs me is that I haven't found any music off the new album available on the Internet, not on the band's own site (www.) alamoracetrack.com, nor at (www.) myspace.com/alamoracetrack (both dó however have some music from the previous albums)...but it was a week ago when I checked. By the time you read this, the release date should've been at least a week ago...so possibly something's been changed to the situation (?). Otherwise, I suppose the album will be sold through the trusted online sales sites (Amazon, iTunes, perhaps Napster and/ or cdbaby?), and usually they provide the possible buyers with 30-seconds samples of all (or at least part of the) album tracks. 92/100 Tony. |