[MAR1999]
Q Magazine

dEUS - The Ideal Crash

Critically lauded, commercially ignored Belgian art rockers’ third album. More accessible, it’s said.

It’s hard to see where the sales are going to come from for dEUS. They’ve produced the kind of difficult music that students in long coats were meant to lap up. That didn’t work. Then again, neither did the beautiful pop of songs like Little Arithmetics. So where does The Ideal Crash go? Well, starting things off with a load of discordant guitar noise and a track called Put All The Freaks Up Front says that maybe dEUS don’t give a toss about paying off the mortgage. Good. This means their music is still the same brilliant, ordered chaos marshalled by Tom Barman’s superb voice that it always has been. And if the millions won’t get to hear how beautiful Magic Hour is, that’s their loss.

QQQQ (4/5)

Howard Johnson