OCD. Tamar Berk

Five albums in five years, it is an output that not many artists manage these days and certainly not the big names. Go back sixty years and you see bands matching this level of output and perhaps even more. Look at the albums though and you will see covers of well and less well-known songs and some filler. Tamar Berk released her fifth album recently and does so at a very consistent level of quality.

Here lies a little danger though, With such a consistent level of output, the saturation point is getting close. It is very easy to get used to what I'm hearing and starting to take it for granted. When I listened to OCD for the first time, this was my initial thought. There are a lot of similarities with what came before. For some albums just a fraction of listening time is more than enough to realise whether it will be worth my while to invest time in it. Of course, it could be that I miss something brilliant because of it. With Tamar Berk, based on my past experience with her music, one session is not enough. It turned out this was the correct decision to make.

Let's start with the opening song, 'Stay Close By'. It starts with a guitar sound that brings me back to the 1990s. Over it Tamar Berk sings with her typical voice, soft, delicate, with a depth that gives it resonance and high enough to be able go up convincingly. The further the song develops, the more happens and it all fits. She must have spent hours to make all the guitar parts fit exactly. In other words from that familiar sound a song came forward that has an astounding depth and richness. There are several songs like this on OCD, which stands for obsessive compulsive disorder. Songs that want me to listen to them again and again.

In the title song, where she faces her demons a bit more, the influence of a band like Fleetwood Mac, more specifically Christine McVie, shines through. Just listen to the synth part and you'll think of a song like 'Everywhere' with me. In other words 'OCD' is a song that could have been a big hit in the 1980s.

Admittedly, there are always two or three songs on Tamar Berk's albums that do not get to me. The rest though goes down really well. What it shows is that the songs on her albums have a width that is missing with most artists. Her influences and tastes are simply a little wider than mine. It's because of the ones that do resonate, resonate really well, I always return to one of her albums. Most of these new songs add to that experience and this results in a review that is positive. With OCD Tamar Berk once again manages to play rock and roll from several decades, soft and hard ballads and some pop, in ways that many artists aspire to do but never come close to an album like OCD.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght

 

You can listen to and order OCD here:

https://tamarberk.bandcamp.com/album/ocd