Tiny Injuries. Tamar Berk

With Tiny Injuries Tamar Berk makes it to this blog with three consecutive albums. The two singles preceding the album already made it clear that chances were that Tiny Injuries would. The mix of pop and rock in Berk's music is getting richer and richer and plainly put: better.

Of course, for someone with a knack for pop-rock with 1970s and 80s Tiny Injuries tickles a lot of fancies. She adds a little post grungerock from the 90s into this already potent mix and comes out shining bright. The music on it immediately competes with this backlog of favourites that are with me for a long time. For most people that competition is unwinnable. I'm a bit different it seems. Because, believe me, these songs are competing quite easily, so I notice. Tamar Berk has found her stride and presents a set of songs that are simply great.

Don't expect her to rock all of the time. There is after all the pop side and a more delicate part where she shows a more intimate side to her music in the form of a ballad with (mainly) just a piano 'If I Could Fix One Thing'. The song closes the album and gets slowly bigger and bigger, slowly circling back to the rock that opens Tiny Injuries, one of the singles 'If U Know, U Know'.

Tamar Berk immediately aims for the Veruca Salt meter here and comes extremely close. 'If U Know, U Know' is the kind of song that when she was working on the arrangement, she was not satisfied with the first, second nor third idea but continued with all the ideas for extra melodies that came next, most likely dropping the first, third and seventh idea along the way. In other words, the song is so rich, including a great guitar solo.

Press photo

It also shows another great quality of Tiny Injuries and Tamar Berk. Nearly every song, if not all, have a great pop element in them. Yet, every single song seems to have a cloud hanging before the silver lining, that is obviously present. The songs have a bittersweet, melancholy element. There's something to pine for and to feel sad,even grieve about. All wrapped up in that cloud while the sun shines bright behind it. Tamar Berk never forgets it and that is the great quality the songs on Tiny Injuries all contain.

This sums up my first impressions of Tiny Injuries. Listening to the album I find so many details hidden in the respective songs. The surprise of a trumpet joining it all, of a modest ballad exploding into a full band take, like a very expensive piece of fireworks that keeps surprising with another explosion of light. The surprise of the richness of the arrangement of a song and the feelings shared with the listener.

Reading her bio Tamar Berk played for and recorded with a host of bands through the past decades before releasing her solo work. With Tiny Injuries, we all have them, yes, she seems to have really hit her stride With Tiny Injuries Tamar Berk has made an album that should make her name one that all alternative rock fans recognise immediately, says

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and buy Tiny Injuries here:

https://tamarberk.bandcamp.com/album/tiny-injuries