deus @ the scala
Apr 16 2008 @ The Scala, London.
It might have been tempting for dEUS to relive a few past glories tonight. Although a new album is imminent (28th April), tonight’s gig is part of a short tour of clubs aimed at warming-up for the serious business of a comprehensive summer of European festivals.
Antwerp’s finest could easily have seen fit to blow out a few cobwebs with a greatest hits package backed-up by a couple of newbies, but, always confident in their capacity for experiment, tonight’s set of fifteen songs boasts seven from the new album, ‘Vantage Point’, and a further three from 2005’s mutedly-received, but in places excellent, ‘Pocket Revolution’.
Of the new material, the menacing ‘Favourite Game’ stands out, as do both sides of the double-A single released next week, ‘The Architect’ and ‘Slow’ – during the latter of which multi-intrumentalist Klaas Janzoons shows just how you play a tambourine properly, which is to hit it as infrequently as possible in a fabulously disinterested, continental manner. If you like your Belgians bearded, cool and generously-gifted, he’s your man. ‘Oh Your God’, one of three encore songs, is a raucous reminder that dEUS can rock.
Back-catalogue highlights include the shoegazingly-beautiful ‘Bad Timing’, ‘Instant Street’, which sees the floor of The Scala reverberating for the first time this evening, and the breakthrough ‘Suds & Soda’ (1994 – was it that long ago?). During their most Beefheart moment, ‘Fell Off The Floor, Man’, Tom Barman dances like the avant-garde Belgian Springsteen – no mean feat. But, however fun these historical trips are, tonight’s interest can be found in the new.
Through four (soon five) albums across 14 years, dEUS have built trust enough for nights like this one to work. Often experimental and regularly excellent, dEUS are one of few bands who can deliver a raft of new material at once to their fans confident of rapt attention.
A full tour supporting Vantage Point is planned for later in the year.