Lovely Bettie

Bettie Serveert: Palomine vs. Pharmacy of Love

by M.J. Fine

You probably haven't paid much mind to Amsterdam alt-rockers Bettie Serveert in more than a decade — if you ever paid them any mind at all — but they've never really stopped doing what they do. On Pharmacy of Love (Second Motion), their eighth studio album, there's a certain familiarity to the proceedings: fuzz where there should be fuzz, sharp angles where sharp angles belong, gentleness in its place. Opener "Deny All" sets the tone, with Carol van Dijk's snappy vocals cutting through rain-cloud guitar and rumbly drums. There's a good deal of variety, from "Love Lee," a ghostly waltz, to "Calling," a nearly 10-minute space jam, to "Change4Me," a pretty, healthy love song that's both straightforward and tentative in its optimism. But in reliability, there's also the risk of staleness: "Souls Travel" and "Mossie" emit a whiff of something that's been sitting in some damp corner for far too long.

Whether the same can be said of Bettie Serveert's critically hailed debut, gathering dust on tens of thousands of shelves, likely depends on whether you think the early '90s smell like a dorm room or Grandma's closet. With its girlish vocals, ambling pace and sudden tempo shifts, 1992's Palomine (Matador) works better as a revealing snapshot of its time than as an enduring piece of art, but there's nothing embarrassing about it. For those who like bruised love songs that end in a hail of feedback, guitarist Peter Visser pleases with a few key moves: squeals and buzzes in the Velvet Underground vein, ragged and glorious riffs cribbed from the Neil Young school of squawk. Such touches fuel tracks like "Brain-Tag" and "Balentine," which begin all quiet and unsettled and grow more aggressive in their longing, but it's the edge to van Dijk's voice that best undercuts her lyrics' sincerity. Most curious is "Tom Boy," an odd choice for a first single; van Dijk gets points for introducing herself with such a direct assertion of identity, and the tough, pretty melody is a natural match for her words, but the song never really goes anywhere. Come to think of it, that's not a bad description of the band itself.

(m_fine@citypaper.net)