Album Review: dEUS - Selected Songs 1994 - 2014

It’s staggering to realise that Belgian stalwarts dEUS have been churning out their increasingly-sophisticated brand of indie rock for two decades now.

Vocalist Tom Barman and multi-instrumentalist Klaas Janzoons are the only members to have stayed the course for the full two decades, and while the band has covered a lot of musical terrain over the journey they’ve possessed a distinctive sound that could never really be mistaken for anyone else. Their art-flecked rock’n’roll contained tinges of jazz in places but was always accessible, the strong songwriting abetted by smooth instrumentation and Barman’s cruisy vocals. Culling seven strong albums down to 30 tracks is no easy feat, but the fact that this compilation’s two-discs are not ordered chronologically yet flow perfectly is testament to the fact that despite their development over their 20 years, they’ve never strayed too far from that core dEUS aesthetic.

They hit the ground running back in the day and fittingly their early work gets the most attention here, with their 1994 debut Worst Case Scenario (Suds & Soda, Via) and their 1996 second album, In A Bar, Under The Sea (Little Arithmetics, Fell Off The Floor Man, Theme From Turnpike) providing a dozen of the selected tracks between them, although all albums get a decent look in. Further highlights abound from the second half of their storied career (Instant Street, Bad Timing, Smokers Reflect, Twice (We Survive), Nothings), but above all Selected Songs 1994-2014 showcases what a durable and consistent band dEUS have been for such an extended period of time. Long may they prosper.