dEUS - How To Replace It Tracklist:1.How To Replace It2.Must Have Been New3.Man Of The House4.19895.Faux Bamboo6.Dream Is a Giver7.Pirates8.Simple Pleasures9.Never Get You High10.Cadillac11.Love Breaks Down12.Le Blues Polaire dEUS have never really had a philosophy. Never wantedone. Yet they’ve remained true to certain guidingprinciples. “You don’t want to repeat yourself, but you haveyour style,” says Tom Barman, frontman and genial leaderof the cult Belgian art-rockers. “You want to try new stuffand just react to whatever feels fresh at the time.” So it iswith ‘How To Replace It’, their eighth studio album and firstin ten years; distinctive and inventive, melodic yet defiantlyoff-kilter. Unique. And above all, unmistakably dEUS. Even that title - mysterious, oblique - scans as beingfantastically unknowable, hinting at a deep sense ofwisdom. “I like the openness of it,” says Barman. Followthe lyrical clues, and you might conclude ‘it’ concernsromance and ageing; squint a little, and you might alighton modernity being the malaise described. Either way,fuelling intrigue is by design. “It’s a question, it’s ananswer... it’s up to the listener to decide.” For the previous two records, jam sessions were long andstructured - five days a week, noon till 6pm - with songsbeing moulded and developed over time. But for the ‘HowTo Replace It’ sessions, Barman shook things up. “We hadshort, explosive jams. Very concentrated,” he says. “Andwhen I heard something, I’d retreat with our engineers anddo the heavy lifting. That’s how the album came together.” Twenty-eight years after their debut record, dEUS remainindie stalwarts, pushing ever forward, endlessly curiousand creatively restless.
