Fat Brando. Fat Brando

Fat Brando is a new band from Belgium and is a collaboration between Robin Aerts and Gerrit Van Dyck. During the lockdown they started to write songs together that a few years later surfaced under the name Fat Brando. (Not to be confused with a Denver based band with the same name.)

As is accustomed in Flanders musicians play in or contribute to multiple bands and Fat Brando is no exception. Aerts plays in Het Zesde Metaal, Van Dyck in The LVE and their fellow Fat Brando collaborators in a host of bands. Best known is the late Tom Pintens, who can be heard on 'Fat Brando'.

The music is quiet the ride. Songs with very different moods come by, each surprising and slightly different. It all starts with the single, 'La Voce Nella Tempesta', a song that takes its time to start. What a song to introduce a new band's debut record with. It is dreamy and yet solid. Slowly but surely an Air vibe is introduced into the song, as it slowly moves from a ballad with a sound drums and bass to the dreamy Air synths and slow guitar notes and wah wah sounds. A song like 'La Voce Nella Tempesta' captures me immediately and opens me to receive the rest of the album. The first battle for attention is won long before the nearly seven minutes long song is over.

Fat Brando is a band that shows several different sides to itself including styles of music. From a dreamy beginning it can become very concrete like in the rocking 'Hold That Thought, Take Care', which has a Pink Floyd mixed with Oasis/Liam Gallagher vibe to it. The mix is extremely successful and I really like the way this track rocks. The contrast with the opening song is huge and shows that Fat Brando is not just another album of friends playing together. 'Hold That Thought, Take Care' is musically as rich as 'La Voce Nella Tempesta'.

Other songs are more what a The LVE fan would expect to hear listening to its songwriter and singer Gerrit Van Dyck. 'Sad Lasts Longer' is a good example. There is a difference though. There's more meat on the bones of the songs on this album. The drums more solid, the electric guitars more present and louder. It attest to stepping out of his comfort zone, making Fat Brando a different band. (The LVE fans musically have already been satisfied with Nijmegen band Waltzburg's latest album. The vibe is so familiar.) I am not familiar enough with Het Zesde Metaal, so can't judge that side of the songwriters duo.

Of course, this is a collaboration and this makes things different already. 'I Am In Love' attests to this. The song is dreamy, yet totally in my face as well. The accents the band plays are extremely tight, the piano very present, the guitar accents dark and brooding. Another of the songs I truly like.

Fat Brando is a new band from Belgium with a good debut album underneath its belt. I do not opt for another lockdown but certainly for a second Fat Brando album.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght