Once you've thrown out the murky bathwater of phrases like "post-rock", "slow burning crescendos", "atmospheric" "cinematic" and "something like God Speed! You Black Emperor or Mogwai", your baby still deserves some honest description of its own.
DETWIIJE are London-based. Their line up is Ben Levy, guitar; Al Harle, guitar; Ellie Wilson, violin; Ben Seal, bass; and Shea Hagan, drums. This full length Gizeh Records album follows an EP "Six is Better Than Eight" from 2004.
The music is a little sullen and brooding with uplifting moments of loud elation. It pummels the listener into an expansive dream state that rather defies critical review.
Introductory title track "Would you rather be followed by forty ducks for the rest of your life?" is a brief six and a half minutes of lilting violin gradually brought in check by a slightly restrained guitar band. The main violin theme is an almost-Irish phrase whose repetition has a roomful of imaginary dancers waiting, just waiting for the moment the full dance emerges. There's a drastic stop (as if some drunk banged all the lights on) after the first crescendo and a slower section begins, with some of the energy taken out of that lilting phrase. After that we seem to be waiting for inspiration and there are a lot of empty bars, repetition and little progress. The final section slows into a briefly lyrical phase, then ends.
"Misspelt Dutch Architect" begins hesitantly, as if a small experimental jazz combo had crept in. There's some interesting open space in the playing with a brutally introduced guitar chord that heralds a drift towards a lonely violin song that floats above the (still) tentative guitar picking and cymbal shimmering. The tempo shifts a little ponderously and the pace picks up. Further sections follow, but I could discern no links. It’s as if the music is written with a random journey through a Dutch city in mind, and would almost certainly benefit from the thread provided by a sequence of architectural images. There are a number of increasingly thunderous and building-demolition climaxes, sometimes with those (now) well-used high clear notes on a Gibson SG or similar. After each high point the levels drop down again for another gradual march on the heights. The violin sings a while, to be nearly drowned in the electricity of military drums and triumphant guitars. The final minutes become slightly chirpier, and the crescendos get more violent.
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Despite it’s name track three's "POP" is no more cheerful. It is shorter by a mile but it’s the same basic idea and could have been a section of the previous track without me noticing the shift.
La guerre des mondes is the second of the two 15 minute pieces that make the substance of this album.. We start with subdued guitars again, and after some up-tempo chopping the flow is broken to let in some of that big outdoors glacier stuff with the ringing violin and marching guitars that do (indeed) recall elements of Jeff Wayne's classic prog rock version of "The War of the Worlds" (coincidentally scheduled for re-release later this year).
It’s all exhilarating and spectacular stuff – more expressive of the band's musical excitement than any great mission to redraw he boundaries of rock. I can imagine the elation of an audience who had let go enough to allow the pulse and dynamics of the music to take over. DETWIIJE's task will be to take what have now become familiar forms and transform them into something genuinely communicative and unique. They will not be alone in that quest, but on the evidence of this album they might be somewhere near the front.
Ellie Wilson's violin is the most expressive and distinctive part of DETWIIJE's sound. I have a feeling that that voice could be given more room to explore and experiment.
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