Remmelt, Muus & Femke are The Netherlands' answer to Crosby, Stills & Nash, although they are seriously lacking a Neil Young to supply some cutting edge to the soft focus California dreaming vibe that permeates this record.
Actually, Peter, Paul & Mary would probably be a more accurate point of reference as they are a two male one female group who inhabit the same sugar-coated land of milk and honey. Here is where, in the city, "all the children are pretty" and minor hardships are tempered by the consolation that "peace will soon come".
The song writing credentials are democratically divided between female Femke Japing and Hugo Remmelt who contribute four songs apiece and Thijs Muus who weighs in with five. Unfortunately, all of the tunes are various shades of beige since lyrically they rarely rise above the banal and clichéd . For instance, on the opening track, Muus sings "I know you, you know me / we know how it's gonna be" while Femke's sentimental love song 'You' has cheesy lines like "You say my name and I remember who I am"
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If you're in an easy listening mood the glow of the fifty minute slides past innocuously enough but I was left aching for a song that seemed to come from the heart.
Only Femke's song, a bonus track called 'Who decides?' , acknowledges that the world may not be so chock full of love and harmony after all. Singing "Fuck all these people rolling the dice", she at least offers a hint of genuine emotion beneath the superficial gloss.
The handsomely presented sleeve features shots of mountain roads, desert side cafes and life as journey is a loose theme of the album, but the lines from 'Gone' sum up the record's overriding lack of depth or direction "I came along the long way round.......going nowhere in particular"
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