Wednesday 9 August 2023

You're still one illusion that I can't resist

I know very, very little about Deus (or dEUS, as they style themselves), other than that they come from Belgium, started up in the early 90s and have carried on every since. Never huge, their commercial peak came in '99, with the album The Ideal Crash. The band's only continuous members are Tom Barman (vocals, guitars) and Klaas Janzoons (keyboards, violin); for everything else, it's been a revolving door of Belgian musos.

So far, so Wikipedia.

What I do know is that I own one song by them, Magdalena, from the aforementioned Ideal Crash album. I think it was on a Q magazine CD, either a cover-mount or subscriber special (yes, I subscribed for a while, back in the day). Until last weekend I had completely forgotten this track but it seems I thought enough of it at the time to include on a mixtape for someone special. Was it good, or had I just had a four and a half minute gap that needed filling?

Turns out it was quite good, I think. Quite ear-wormy, in places. And quite different too. And as a bonus, I think this might be the first Belgian band to grace these pages... but aside from that, what do you reckon?Tip the author

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