I'm not afraid for being that lonely.....The Serenes--Back to Wonder

I forget where I heard about The Serenes, but I know that what I heard about them gave me the impetus to seek out the music of this Dutch pop band from the 1990's. They were from Friesland and put out 2 albums which are pretty great sounding, though maybe not the most original sounding. There are some that consider them to be the best pop band ever from the Netherlands.

Think REM with better enunciation, more polished and pop oriented. A bit on the downbeat side, which I suppose you could guess by the band's name!
.
Janglepop. With some 60's pop stylings thrown in. Probably as good as a lot of bands from this era who did this sort of thing.

The album I am enjoying right now is Back to Wonder, their second and final album, released by RCA, produced by famed American producer Lou Giordano, who has produced a diverse group of artists over the years, from Boston's Moving Targets, Husker Du, Mission of Burma, Goo Goo Dolls, Belly, and the Lemonheads. The sound quality is pretty excellent on this album, with a few intimate sounding acoustic numbers and even a string saturated ballad (Here).

At least in theory, if this album had been released in the States, it could have seen some success. As it stood I had some difficulty locating their Cd's, but struck gold via Discogs.

All in all the songs are impeccable on Back to Wonder. There is not a bad track on this album. The pop songs are understated, and this probably would not be to the taste of some. If this album was a movie, it would categorized as a "date movie". Which is not a bad thing necessarily.

Because there is a lot to love about this album. Starting with the first song---Spirit (Let me Walk), which is a pretty song with chiming guitar. Maybe a little understated to begin an album, but a fine
song, nonetheless.


 

The Serenes are: Theo De Jong; guitar and vocals, Pyter Kuipers; bass and backing vocals, and Joan Hooghiemstra on drums. Personally I prefer the energy of the 2nd song, Feel Me. This is a clip of the band performing the song acoustically on 2 Meter Sessies.





Another great song on Back to Wonder is Wider Green, which has an almost Byrdsy twang to it, which then converts into soaring guitar pop. The song segues into Love under Will, an intimate acoustic number. Here is another beautiful ballad but with strings--it sounds like it could found a spot on one of Colin Blunstone's (Zombies)solo albums of the early 70's. Another standout is Every Sunday---which is right here.




I think you get the idea of what this band's sound is. Their first album, Barefoot and Pregnant is also a very nice album that I would recommend. The band split up in 1994. I know that Theo De Jong later had a band called Simmer which was released Mothertongue on the Dutch label Excelsior, which was also home to Dutch pop stars Johan, who I did a post on a while back. As far as I know, I have no further information about these guys. I'm sure somebody knows something somewhere. Hope you enjoy this post.