Bettie Serveert
Attagirl
(Minty Fresh)
Indie rock, like most cultural
enterprises, is not a meritocracy. Consider Bettie Serveert, the
Amsterdam-based outfit fronted by Canadian expat Carol van Dyk.
Thirteen years ago, the group ruled the college-radio playlists
enchanted critics with debut full-length Palomine, and toured with all
the major dudes of the day. Thanks in large part to Bettie
Serveert, Matador became the label of choice for hipper-than-thou
types; throughout the ’90s, its cred-heavy imprimatur
launched influential acts such as Liz Phair and Pavement.
Unfortunately, subsequent offerings from its flagship band were
much less successful, and, in an act of colossal ingratitude or
simple business smarts, Matador dumped Bettie Serveert in 1997.
Although the band’s lineup has
fluctuated over the years, the core members remain.
Singer/guitarist van Dyk and guitarist Peter Visser, who write the
bulk of the songs, stubbornly persist in crafting intelligent,
innovative, and woefully underrated guitar pop, even though
they’re damned when they sound “like themselves”
(that is, themselves circa Palomine) and damned when they don’t: When the
thirtysomething members of Wilco mess around with loops and
samples, critics call them brave and groundbreaking; when the
thirtysomething members of Bettie Serveert so much as look at a
drum machine, the same critics say they’re pandering,
pathetic old carpetbaggers.
Luckily, Bettie Serveert won’t be deterred
by fickle hypocrites. Less than two years after the release of Log 22, a topnotch
collection of Velvet Underground-inspired psych-dirges and quirky
ballads, the band presents Attagirl, its seventh full-length and first for Minty Fresh. Attagirl is more obviously
experimental than its predecessor, but it represents an evolution in
the band’s sound rather than an entirely new direction. Whereas Log 22 used keyboards
judiciously, mostly for ornamentation and effect, on Attagirl entire songs are
constructed around them. With its synthetic strings and rumbling
one-note bass line, “Versace” forgoes the band’s
characteristic loose-limbed playfulness in favor of brooding Euro-style
electropop. Other synth-heavy tunes, such as “Dreamaniacs”
and “Greyhound Song,” incorporate the new toys with more
subtlety, weaving them through off-kilter guitar hooks and van
Dyk’s luminous vocal melodies. Techno-hatas need not panic,
however: “Don’t Touch That Dial,” “1 Off
Deal,” and “Hands Off” are as infectiously
guitar-centric as anything on Palomine, and the CD includes two all-acoustic bonus tracks for
those who really, really hate technology. The nicest surprise, though,
is the CD’s closing track, a sprawling cover of Bright
Eyes’ “Lover I Don’t Have to Love.” van Dyk
sings the masochistic lyrics with unusual ferocity, transforming Conor
Oberst’s self-pitying paean to anonymous groupie sex into
something that’s part indictment, part celebration, and all rock
& roll.
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2005.
