Album and concertreview Daily Bread, Paradiso, Amsterdam October 16th 2012 – Tuesday evening, on the excessively varnished floor of Paradiso’s upstairs hall, the sexy garage dance quartet Daily Bread revealed their sophomore album to an enthusiastic audience. The band, signed to the leading Dutch label Excelsior, started out as a trio in 2008 and recruited an extra keyboardist (Atser Damsma) early this year. Compared to their well received debut Well, You’re Not Invited (2009) Daily Bread sound less playful and more intense on their follow-up. For Iterum they have been roaming Electrorock’s darker corners. The design is all there and there is enough substance to support the band’s sincere intentions, at least half of the time. The Nett-result is more Republica than Crystal Castles. More light-electro than synth-noir, which doesn’t make any less entertaining.
Since their debut Daily Bread have done some extensive touring on both sides of the Atlantic. It has paid of. The band play with the fluency of old-hands and with the energy of a bunch of eager debutants. Unlike most of their Dutch colleagues Daily Bread do not seem to think that ‘image’ is a dirty word. Their look perfectly matches their sound and a smoke machine and an impressive lighting installation almost have us forget that they are from Emmeloord, pinnacle of Holland’s polder country. Singer Kimberly van der Velden possesses an endearing girl-next-door quality that, in combination with the evanescent dramatics of the new record, should attract a considerably larger contingent of teenage girls than are present in the Paradiso on Tuesday night.
Iterum sounds fashionably analogue, from the intro of Allure to the last notes of In All. Many songs sport bandleader Chris Mulder’s Peter-Hook imitation bass guitar, which of course is rather 2009. But hey, they’re from Emmeloord. A weightier obstacle that’s standing in the way of me fully embracing this record it’s naïve grandeur. When at its worst (The Spider, Day of Revolt) I half wonder if someone has taught Within Temptation how to play Italo disco. At those moments Van der Velden’s style of singing is the drop in the bucket. Is she trying to make herself heard over a loud racket that was later dubbed out in the mix? During the song Loverst her obstinate vocal performance even echoes cross-grained Sinead O’conner. I have to be honest: it works. The song is one of the best of the album and possesses a luring build up which it shares with only a few other songs on the album. One of those songs is the album’s title track and the irresistle nu-rave track Silica is another. Oh, how the Germans will go mad for that one. The song was one of the highlights of Tuesday’s CD-presentation. Unfortunately, Daily Bread chose to end both the album and the pre-encore part of their concert with an ostentatious ballad called You Have Become, even bringing four friends onto the stage to sing the feeble chorus. It’s by far the worst sung track on the album. Some may call it emotive, I call it off key.
Iterum isn’t a flawless record, but if you listen passed its apparent simplicity you might find yourself dancing to some of the most authentic sounding synthpop ever made in the polder. If we could understand Van der Velden’s English we might even sing along with the choruses. (Listen to the title track; she can’t be singing ‘in the arse, one-two’ can she?)