Review Summary: Trijntje returns with a pop album with original material. Add to this the musical range from Anouk and you won't be disappointed.
Trijntje (or Traincha, as she is known in the rest of the world) is well known in The Netherlands for her wide range of albums. She started out as the lead singer for
Total Touch in the '90's and then produced a lot of solo albums. Unfortunately most of them are cover albums. Not that those albums were bad (in fact, her Burt Bacherach songbookmaterial is very good), but I always hoped she would once again come up with an album with original material. And now she does with the help of
Anouk, another Dutch singer.
This album consists of ten songs which were penned down by Anouk in collaboration with other writers and produced together with Tore Johansson en Martin Gjerstad. Anouk wanted to write and produce an entire album for Trijntje, instead of just one song as Trijntje requested. Thank God Trijntje agreed! Because this album contains both the lyrical and musical escapades that Anouk is famous for in the last few years, as well as the vocal greatness of Trijntje.
Opener
Better Think Twice is perfect as it is. When Trijntje sings
Oh boy, you'd better think twice. Before I‘ll pack my bags and leave your sorry ash behind., you know that Anouk continues the ‘big-girl-who-is-angry-at-her-bad-boyfriend’ approach she used in her latest albums. Trijntje’s vocals are sublime, as are the background vocals on the track. As the overall tempo of the album is quite low, this song sets the pace of the album nicely. The same goes for the closer
One Step Away From Coming Home. Once again a down tempo song and it closes of the album perfect. I really like the feeling you get from the lyrics. It somehow seems possible that the relationship between the singer and her former lover can be restored, because she is just one step away from coming home.
But this album is more than down tempo love or breakup songs. Two songs that stand out in another way are
We Are Gold and
Happiness.
We Are Gold is almost a mini symphony, but all done within three minutes. It starts out smooth like a power ballad, including the use of harpsichord-like instrumentation. Than it transforms into the perfect Burt Bacherach popsong, before it finishes of with a jubilant vocal exercise.
Happiness gives you what you want from a title like that: happiness in a song. What else do you expect from lines like
Overflowed, with happiness inside I feel so overjoyed.
Add a driving backbone and great use of the flute and you’ll see the sun go down on a beautiful summers day.
For me the absolute highlight is
In Time. This song slowly builds on some kind of typewriter backbone and a gorgeous string arrangement. Over the course of the five minutes the song lasts, more and more instruments and background vocals are thrown in and accompany Trijntje on what could arguably be her best song ever. Fantastic!
The only downside to the album is that it only consists of 10 songs and lasts no more than 40 minutes. But then again, I’d rather have 10 songs like this than more songs and be disappointed.
