WORST CASE SCENARIO

When this debut album from Antwerp-origined group appeared, it took Belgium by storm, as the scene was fairly vacant in the Alternative Rock domain in their homeland. Unless really involved in the underground scene, no one had heard of Rudy Trouvé, Tom Barman, Janzoons , DeBorgher and Stef Carlens and they became an immediate success. Whether they are prog is a debate that will of course not be resolved and I personally would classify them as prog-tinged alternative rock as they are for sure one of the more inventive bands to have hit the airwaves in the mid-90's and are likely to please progheads into intelligent rock in the mould of Radiohead and Muse. This band is a rather bizarre (but usual) Belgian twist of fate as dEUS could not find a record deal in home Flanders and had to travel to antagonist Wallonie to find a small and just starting label Bang! to get recorded. Miracles are fairly common in a land where surrealism was born.

Most of you will have heard their hits such Suds & Sodas etc.... But there is much more to them than their more commercial side and if you are listening to the title track or Morticia Chair, you cannot help but be impressed by their multiple sound crossing Red Hot Chilly Pepper with some impressive almost Beastie Boys vocals with great cello and violin lines. Other tracks Jigsaw or Let Go are quieter and more reflective (you could almost say Ambient) or the superb Mute first calm before exploding in a typical dEUS fashion showing amazing maturity for this debut album. Their sense of dynamics may remind you of Mr Bungle or Anekdoten, but the phrasings do not foray too deep and complex to be considered really prog. Other musical references I think of is Dutch Burma Shave (the debut is fantastic) or UK's Eat's sole album Sell Me A God.

However inventive and creative and intelligent their music is, it has also a fairly noisy sound (so typical of 90's sound) that it is hard for me to listen to a whole album in one shot even though the album is only 47 min long. And this feeling is so much reinforced by ending the album with a short but powerful Shake Your Hip and a bizarre twangy guitar tune.

This band was overflowing so much artistic creativity (and not just musical as the artwork is a painting by guitar/KB man Trouvé) that offshoot projects started soon, eventually leading to some original members leaving, but this is later on.