The Dame is a band from The Hague, the Netherlands. The band consists of Marian van Charante (lead & backing vocals, guitar), Stephen de Ruijter (lead guitar), Michel Krempel (bass), Thijs de Ruijter (keyboards) and Ruben Meibergen (drums). Losing Sight Of What You Want is their debut. All lyrics are written by Marian and most of the music is written by Stephen. The Dame is a female fronted band. When I read their website I read they the band wants to go back to the twenties of the twentieth century. If you take a look at the pictures in the booklet, they succeed in it. What kind of music they played in that years, I really don't know. That everything needed to be challenging becomes clear by the pictures and the text at the last page of the booklet, where you can read: let's misbehave! Right, the vibe is clear. And how about the music, what can you expect? Water Tumbles Down is the opening song and has a quiet intro. Directly the beautiful voice of Marian comes to mind. The music makes a conflicting impression; the piano sounds depressing while the guitar moves me. And to tell you of the lovely bass lines, wow. Again, the singer has a really beautiful voice. After the last verse, you will hear the good rhythm section while the guitar tells you its own tale, deep and entraining. I conveniently change the song title to 'the guitar tumbles you down'. Good opening song with space for every instrument. A joy to listen to. In General Disarray you will hear a funky bass line and you will take notice of a tough text. Halfway it becomes firmer with a keyboard solo together with a guitar solo. There is a lot of guitar work in the song, lovely. Faking It In Monaco starts with footsteps and a humming Marian, directly followed by a beautiful guitar solo. Marian sings her lyrics really threatening, what they need, well done! Also in this song you will hear a lot of long guitar solos. As if The Dame has patent on guitar solos, great. The Last Dance has some melodic music with now and then a lovely bass line. Good to mention that in this song the keyboard is more important than in other songs, especially in the first part of the song. Good job. Losing Sight Of What You Want is the second longest track on the album, more than 11 minutes long. It has a relaxed intro. The lyrics are really funny, just read them and you will know what I mean. After about four minutes there is another great guitar solo, this time with great bass lines. The guitar solo takes about one and a half minutes and never has a dull moment. This is not the last long solo in the song because there is another one that gives you goosebumps while you are hypnotised by the bass playing. In this song the chorus is repeated too much in my opinion. Instead of 11 minutes the song was'better' when it finished after about 8 minutes. However, because of the guitar the song could have lasted forever and ever.... In Thy Father's Bidding, that opens with threatening piano sounds, you will hear a child's choir, nicely done. There is a lot of threatening in the song, as you can hear in the lyrics. So that is a good combination. At the end there is an addictive guitar solo, another one!! I know where I can find the repeat button. The last track is the longest epic. To be short; there are too many lyrics in this song and the music is less important. Too bad, because the rest of the album is to be feasted. My conclusion is that The Dame delivers a good album with Losing Sight Of What You Want. I hear a lot of potential for future albums. I think the next one will be the surprise of the year, believe me!! **** Michel Stolk (edited by Tracy van Os van den Abeelen) Where to buy? |
