Fancy Cars. The Grey Pants

For the second time this week, we present three albums. This is the third. All are too good to ignore while all three would have missed out if I had stuck to three new albums this week. So all three get a shorter review today.

Listening to Fancy Cars for the first time, I thought to listen to a new album of Carol Cleveland Sings, a totally obscure album, 'Effervescent Lure', that I bought online from a tiny record company in the U.S. by having it delivered in San Francisco at a professional friend's house, who brought it to an international conference in Mexico we attended from where I brought it home to NL. One of 500 copies!

The Grey Pants is not from the U.S. though. It is Dutch duo Henk Koorn (Hallo Venray) and Elza van Zevenbergen. Fancy Cars is its third album. For me its the first, as far as I'm aware. The album is filled with small songs that tell about every day topics like seeing donkeys in a video, a dog, baking omelets, sports cars and much more.

The music is also small, in the sense that beats come from a box and from there anything is possible. An electric guitar is always there. It is not mood setting though. That is the dreamy singing of especially Van Zevenbergen. Next come some keyboards. The combination of singing and instruments used, is what brought me to Carol Cleveland Sings. The likeness is somewhat uncanny even.

Having said that, it is my impression at this point in time that Fancy Cars is better. The only reason I can give at this moment is that the songs are better. They flow in a better way, despite the minimal, lo-fi approach. In the past weeks the album came by regularly in the huge offer of new albums. That ought to say enough.

One thing though, since Wet Leg's first single we Dutchies know that chaise longue in English is pronounced as sjees long and not sjèze. That aside, it's all good.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

 

You can order Fancy Cars here:

https://excelsior-recordings.com/en/products/the-grey-pants-fancy-cars