Deus Album: "Pocket Revolution" Release Date: Oct, 2005 Label: V2 Rock-Rev Value: [7.5/10] Genre: Rock Styles: Alternative Pop/ Rock, Neo-Prog, Experimental Rock, Experimental Buy It

review by: Pitchfork
Album Value: (7.8/10)
reviewer:-Joe Tangari

The members of dEUS named their band after God, which takes no small amount of chutzpah. It also sets the bar kind of high. I imagine that if God made music it'd be pretty special, maybe the kind of thing that would physically blow your mind out your ear or herald the Earth's final destruction. Think about how disappointing it would be if God was on the bill and you got a milquetoast singer-songwriter or boring lap-pop.

dEUS' music isn't godly, but in the second half of the 90s they released three very good albums that weren't easily pigeonholed. The first two in particular hop from genre to genre, while 1999's The Ideal Crash took all their manic eccentricity and channeled it into a slightly more accessible package. Six years later, Pocket Revolution continues that evolution with a sharp, direct attack that undoubtedly has more commercial potential than anything they've released before. This comes at the expense of the messy charm that made their early music so enjoyably chaotic, but anyone who originally liked them for the Frank Zappa, Charles Mingus, Don Cherry, and Captain Beefheart affinities they once flew like a flag won't be totally disappointed, as their music still has those elements. They're just packaged more subtly.

Case in point is "Cold Sun of Circumstance", a wildly rhythmic song stuffed with faux blues riffage and frenetic vocals. The main thing separating it from the craziness of In a Bar, Under the Sea is the band's restrained production, which has a smoothing effect on all of the material. The proggier songs are held back a bit by the approach-- "What We Talk About (When We Talk About Love)" in particular features a monster rhythm track topped with Beefheartian interjections and could have had the same explosive quality of "Fell Off the Floor, Man" with looser engineering-- but the band's pop side is finally given full flower, so it's a trade-off. (...)

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review by: Drowned In Sound
Album Value: (4.5/5)
reviewer:-Lianne Steinberg

It's only a band; remember it's only a band. So why on earth does the first rumble of Tom Barman's fragile voice cause the eyes to prickle and form great big tears of relief? Maybe it's because those who fell so deeply into their world of hotel lounges, Beefheart toms and murderous relationships haven't dared speak of their absence, simply because it was a loss that was just too keenly felt.

Six years since what was thought to be their final album, The Ideal Crash, there is still no one that comes close to the avant-garde, nocturnal journeys of this Belgian behemoth. With the original line-up gone, it's been left to founding member Barman to surround himself with musicians who have helped him sound more like vintage dEUS. Opener 'Bad Timing' happened to be the final song committed to tape whilst recording, yet it's a natural way to start; reclaiming their fatalistic, sinister sound. In the same way that 'Roses' and 'Suds and Soda' built into earth shattering melodies that sprinted for the finish line, 'Bad Timing' features Barman characteristically holding his vocals back, maintaining a menacingly tuneful huskiness whilst all the dramatics are left to slicing guitars and driving, fuzzed up bass.

As The Ideal Crash couched itself in an intricate, serene world, new single '7 Days, 7 Weeks' is its natural successor, with Barman is in advisory mode and the soft, salutary tones being handed gravitas by the soothing female vocals. Long-time friend and frontman Tim Vanhamel adds his sleaze-ridden guitar to 'If You Don't Get What You Want' making it one of the album's sexiest, openly seductive tracks.(...)

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review by: Playlouder
Album Value: (4.5/5)
reviewer: Daniel Robson

I definitely fancy this new dEUS album. So why don't I want to shag it?

It's been nine years since I fell in love with Antwerp five-piece dEUS. The sweet, fumbling whimsy of 'Little Arithmetics' lodged in my ears, and although I found the rest of the song's parent album 'In A Bar Under The Sea' somewhat hit and miss, my love-pump throbbed anew when its follow-up was released in 1999. 'Ideal Crash' was just one of those albums: hard to pigeonhole, easy to love. It whirled with delicate, understated guitar-play, dark melodies, haunting strings, inventive rhythm and pert buttocks.

Six years later, dEUS are back, flaunting new knickers to tempt me into bed. But while 'Pocket Revolution' is good for a fumble, the band don't quite grip my horn like they used to.

The new line-up sounds pretty similar to the dEUS of old, that much is certain. The loss of auxiliary member Tim Vanhamel and addition of Mauro Pawlowski, both ex- of Evil Superstars - the best thing to come out of Belgium since chocolate-covered waffles - makes little odds. This is still very much Tom Barman's brothel, and he madams it well. Best of all, 'Pocket Revolution' sounds a lot like 'Ideal Crash' in its dense, raw musicianship, with thick guitars and teases of feedback echoing against underplayed strings and morose vocals.(...)

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review by: Gigwise
Album Value: (4.5/5)
reviewer: Janne Oinonen

Belgium might be renowned for chocolate rather than music for a reason (although Soulwax might beg to differ), but dEUS did an admirable job in boosting the country's flagging art-rock industry over the course of three albums during the 1990's despite being criminally ignored outside mainland Europe and Scandinavia.

Five years and a few line-up changes later, dEUS are back, and even a cursory listen to Pocket Revolution reveals that the amendments to the Antwerp five-piece's agenda aren't limited to the personnel department. The band's urge for producing an unclassifiable lopsided racket by tossing all possible influences from jazz noodling and nocturnal crooner balladry to Velvet Underground-flavoured drones and beyond, to the pot and then steering that steaming stew in thrillingly unpredictable directions, appears to be a thing of the past. Instead, it's their always prominent pop chops that hog the spotlight, with the inevitable results that Pocket Revolution is filled with disappointingly conventional fare that reins in the band’s more eccentric tendencies. There is nothing here to match the brilliance of violin-powered chant-fest 'Suds & Soda' - even an epic track named after the bizarre, intergalactic cult jazz hero Sun Ra who claimed to be from Saturn remains earthbound despite some spirited stabs at freewheeling space rock.(...)

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