IF_THEN_ELSE

The album title may sound as if it had come from one of my Rexx programs, but the music is much more interesting than that. In Anneke, they have one of the most interesting female rock vocalists, and they use her range to provide superb counterpoint to what is happening beneath. This is a strange album in many ways, and while all of the songs would fit under the banner 'rock', these are much more than the antics of five people from Holland left alone with amplification. Even though they sound nothing like Björk, I could see her adapting some of these songs. "Bad Movie Scene" is a case in point. It may be under four minutes long, but it is full of melodrama and passion, and Thom Yorke would love it.

They use distortion to good effect, and the impression at the end of the album is that of not fully having understood all that is going on. It means that the only course of action is to play it again, in the hope of gaining the full meaning of the music. Do that six or seven times in succession then possibly, just possibly, you may get your head inside the music. Compelling and wonderful ? not an album to be taken lightly or after a big meal.

Originally appeared in Feedback #61, Feb 01