Customer Reviews

Dust Bunnies

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I feel this is their most accessible CD. The songs have more hooks without losing the standard Bettie hard edge. Carol's voice is more varied than on previous albums. I bought this album shortly after seeing the band in concert. It was perhaps the first time I've heard a band's new material for the first time and enjoyed it as much as the older, classic material that I knew by heart.

...from the beginning to the end, this record never fails to make me smile, and it is definitely worth checking out. it's just a really good rock record, and those are getting harder and harder to find these days.

Bettie Serveert is perhaps the most underrated of the bands recruited in the early nineties by the much-touted Matador label. They've been repeatedly drubbed by critics for not being Liz Phair or Pavement, and this is a shame, for their work as a whole greatly surpasses the former's and--within its three-disc compass--equals the latter's. Here they're at their last and best. To focus on the title song alone: Carol van Dijk's lyrics to "Dust Bunny"--about a child hiding under the bed--are easily understood as metaphor (as van Dijk says on another album, "sometimes life/ makes you feel so scared"). The song's arrangement (vocals and muffled electric guitar) stands in stark contrast to those of the rest of the album, accentuating the eery isolation that the song is all about. Peter Visser's guitar-work, with its sixteenth-note patterns, works wonderful counterpart to van Dijk's vocals, suggesting the relentless mental activity that underlies the near-autism of the song's subject. As for overall structure: it would have been easy to drag this song out far too long, but the band knew better than that. At just over two minutes, "Dust Bunny" is a masterpiece in little, a fitting swan song for one of nineties-alt-rock's uncelebrated heroes. This song has haunted me for three years now, and it will assuredly do so for years to come.

This album is underrated by the "die-hard" Bettie Serveert fans, who, I am told, prefer "Palomine" the band's first album. I personally can't see why this is any less stellar than Palomine. Carol van Dijk consistently knocks out clever, poetic, touching lyrics in english, more impressive for it being her second language. Peter Visser continues to rock out engaging guitar melodies, harmonies and just plain noises. Together they really know how to write music. This album goes from thrashed out alt-rock anthems to light-hearted comical tunes to sweeping melancholic ballads, hitting only one false note on the way: I give it 4 1/2 stars, just shy of a five just because "Rudder", the song about the band that sells and consequently sells out, just rubs me the wrong way. (On the other hand, I never actually skip the track, so I might be wrong.) My personal favorite is "Misery Galore"; it makes it on many-a-mixtape I've made. Every once in a while I see this used for six bucks or less somewhere on St. Mark's Place and I think that's a steal. My one word of caution is that Carol's voice bothers some people, but that could go for almost ANY band with lyrics, so hear a sample before you run out and buy.

Listening to this album from the late 1990s in anticipation of their new one, it's difficult to see where Bettie Serveert went wrong. Compared to their first two excellent albums, Palomine and Lamprey, Dust Bunnies sounds alot rougher, with barely a keyboard in sight. There's more of a shuffley Velvet Underground rhythm to the slower tracks on the album, like Pork and Beans, but the opener, Geek, is one of the best grunge anthems you're likely to hear. It all compares very favourably with any of the guitar bands around today. And it's much more uplifting than the post-Radiohead guitar miserablism - that Bettie Serveert toyed with on Lamprey in 1996 - of bands like Doves. Why the Spin journalist thought Bettie Serveert were "second best" I don't really know. Musher, Co-Coward and Fallen Foster are some of the best compositions you'll hear in any genre, and all sung in Van Dijk's distinctive unadorned Dutch/American drawl for enhanced effect. Whatever did happen to Spin Magazine?

At first I didn't like it. Wow did it grow on me! They really mix it up with a variety of melodies. Although the band (especially Van Dyk's vocals) have a lot of rough edges, the more I listen to it, the more perfection I hear in it. I can listen to it over and over. My favorite Serveert and my favorite CD overall.

This seems to happen with all my favorite bands. They put out three albums, then they're done. Galaxie 500, Bedhead, Bettie Serveert. Anyways, this one is so good. So pretty. The last two songs are so pure and pretty.

I had heard of Bettie Serveert and had been meaning to check out their music for some time. I have finally done so, and must say I wish I had earlier. This CD has been played continuously since I have purchased it. Carols vocals add the perfect tone and aura to the music. A definite must have CD!

It's been forever since I bought a CD I couldn't quit playing. I'm like a junkie. I have to listen to the last song "Heaven" over and over again. This is a really great album.

I love this album the more I listen to it. In fact, a friend and I stayed up all night once and listened to this album over and over, because of all the hundreds of albums and cd's on my shelves, we couldn't find anything worth listening to after the first listen. So we just kept playing Dust Bunnies....