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Echoes of Can's continental cosmische music, The The's unvented aggression and John Barry's cinema soundtracks slug it out from Vantage Point's opening track. As the band lead you through a confusing labyrinth of their own creation, vocals switch disconcertingly from track to track between a confessional whisper and a 'crazy man on the street corner' rant. It's a lyrically rich, take-no-prisoners album, one that will divide new listeners between those enraptured by the recherché beauty of dEUS in full flight and those who'll run screaming from the room.
Though still far from easy to digest, this is easily the band's most accessible work in years, boasting shades of R.E.M. even in some of the lustier guitar work, with Eternal Woman, the first single taken from the album, a deceptively simple sounding love song that even includes some gentle female backing vocals and a straight-faced ''oooh oooh'' refrain. That single, out of character swerve straight into the path of modern Americana apart, Vantage Point is a fairly conventional rock album, albeit one that takes its cues from the mighty Captain Beefheart, Pixies and Velvet Underground.
This is possibly the album that will take dEUS out of the leftfield and plant them in the mainstream, where they'll set a standard other bands will have to struggle to match. Vantage Point offers more than their recent over-serious, grunge-lite product: with its unexpected changes of pace, unnoticed slips from riff to groove and unfathomable lyrics. This might even be the thin edge of the wedge that heralds the return of prog rock. --Al Spicer
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
dEUS quietly released two of the best albums of the late 1990s with 'In A Bar, Under The Sea' and 'The Ideal Crash' before disappearing from everyone's radar. In 2005, Tom Barman (who pretty much *is* dEUS in the same way that Matt Johnson *is* The The) returned with a comeback album 'Pocket Revolution', which saw half the band replaced and a slightly calmer, though somehow even more enigmatic sound. What had previously been schizophrenically genre-hopping was now split into more or less two opposing poles: smoky barroom ballads and dark travelogues like 'Bad Timing' and 'Sun Ra' where you wondered what the hell was going through Barman's mind...
Here's the next chapter, and it's obvious that the answers aren't any clearer. dEUS have always been a band that exist and encapsulate their own world, one of arty bohemia and melancholy, late-night regret, but also one underpinned with a vaguely frightening atmosphere of churning neuroses and split-second, barely repressed violent impulses. They totally immerse the listener inside the song's narrator's head, and they are also defiantly European - a song like 'The Architect' (Kraftwerk-goes-disco, essentially) couldn't and indeed wouldn't be written by any British band, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why Barman is such a perpetually overlooked figure.
He has the songwriting chops, however. It is true that dEUS' softer songs are nowadays more soporific than the tense noir they used to radiate ('Eternal Woman' and 'Smokers Reflect' are dolefully pretty but not especially attention-grabbing) but their harder tracks are getting ever more ornate and hypnotic. The languidly sinister, smeared guitars (reflecting the album artwork) of 'Is A Robot' and the krautrock-grunge 'Favourite Game' are cases in point here, as is 'Oh Your God' (spiralling Queens Of The Stone Age verses juxtaposed with an unexpectedly folky, rousing chorus). But the album highlight is undoubtedly 'Slow', which rides a rumbling Beefheartian rhythm to a unforgettably ghoulish, synthesised refrain. It sounds deeply sinister and deeply sad all at once.
You get the impression the set could have been a couple of songs longer, which is not something you'd ordinarily say in the age of overstuffed 79:59 double concept albums, but maybe it's for the best. Barman has crafted another portrait of lingering European ennui and nagging doubt, and then he gets the hell outta Dodge. A new album could (already) be on the way, apparently, so watch him do the same next time around.
Here's the next chapter, and it's obvious that the answers aren't any clearer. dEUS have always been a band that exist and encapsulate their own world, one of arty bohemia and melancholy, late-night regret, but also one underpinned with a vaguely frightening atmosphere of churning neuroses and split-second, barely repressed violent impulses. They totally immerse the listener inside the song's narrator's head, and they are also defiantly European - a song like 'The Architect' (Kraftwerk-goes-disco, essentially) couldn't and indeed wouldn't be written by any British band, which perhaps goes some way to explaining why Barman is such a perpetually overlooked figure.
He has the songwriting chops, however. It is true that dEUS' softer songs are nowadays more soporific than the tense noir they used to radiate ('Eternal Woman' and 'Smokers Reflect' are dolefully pretty but not especially attention-grabbing) but their harder tracks are getting ever more ornate and hypnotic. The languidly sinister, smeared guitars (reflecting the album artwork) of 'Is A Robot' and the krautrock-grunge 'Favourite Game' are cases in point here, as is 'Oh Your God' (spiralling Queens Of The Stone Age verses juxtaposed with an unexpectedly folky, rousing chorus). But the album highlight is undoubtedly 'Slow', which rides a rumbling Beefheartian rhythm to a unforgettably ghoulish, synthesised refrain. It sounds deeply sinister and deeply sad all at once.
You get the impression the set could have been a couple of songs longer, which is not something you'd ordinarily say in the age of overstuffed 79:59 double concept albums, but maybe it's for the best. Barman has crafted another portrait of lingering European ennui and nagging doubt, and then he gets the hell outta Dodge. A new album could (already) be on the way, apparently, so watch him do the same next time around.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I found it by chance... I was in Ferrara for an Interpol's gig, and deUS was opening: I loved dEUS, died bored with Interpol... Ok, then I fell in love with them too, but yet...
A great, well-played album, with many ones to be remembered. Just great CD!
A great, well-played album, with many ones to be remembered. Just great CD!
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
After a seven year hiatus in 1999, Belgian quintet Deus have been very busy in the last 3 years and this their fifth album vies with "The Ideal Crash" as their most commercial work.
The husky vocals remain the same, entwined with moments of delightful melody and then abrasive noise but this is a trademark of the Deus brilliance which all fans have come to love and cherish.
The guitar work of Mauro Pavlovski is very impressive as the ten tracks sweep by in a majestic arc. Karin Drejer of The Knife provides backing vocals on the title track and horns and strings flesh out the basically Beefheartian sounds of the band.
Tom Barman has written some of his best tunes for a decade,Deus deserve to be up there with any of the major exports from Antwerp over the last 500 years or so.....buy this and breathe in the slightly off-kilter breeze of the Euro-leftfield.
The husky vocals remain the same, entwined with moments of delightful melody and then abrasive noise but this is a trademark of the Deus brilliance which all fans have come to love and cherish.
The guitar work of Mauro Pavlovski is very impressive as the ten tracks sweep by in a majestic arc. Karin Drejer of The Knife provides backing vocals on the title track and horns and strings flesh out the basically Beefheartian sounds of the band.
Tom Barman has written some of his best tunes for a decade,Deus deserve to be up there with any of the major exports from Antwerp over the last 500 years or so.....buy this and breathe in the slightly off-kilter breeze of the Euro-leftfield.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
deus are back!
Maybe not as bold and daring as they used to be, but they are back and deserve only five stars for this mere fact!!! An absolute must for fans and those who want to become fans..
Published on 17 Sep 2008 by Emil Tischbein
dEUS should play at Glastonbury
dEUS should have the opportunity to play on Glastonbury festival. dEUS will play on the Werchter Festival this summer on the 6th of July. Read more
Published on 19 April 2008 by Paul Vereecke
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