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Vervloesem, Pierre: Rude
 As the sonic jolt of "Disquiet" careened into the spaces normally reserved for my eardrums, an errant blip of thought-pulp expressed itself: what if Adam Jones, Justin Chancellor and Danny Carey recorded a CD of instrumentals? Not much of a stretch when it comes to the proceedings encountered within much of guitarist Pierre Vervloesem's Rude, particularly when keyboard player Peter Vandenberghe's moves are pretty much squelched...now, wait a second — Hold! The likes of "N 'Roll" usher in an altogether different m.o. with its surf rock shtick. And now Vandenberghe enjoys some up-front-time, dropping in quirky synth burblings. And yet, "Experimental Dentition" chooses to return to a more noisome boulevard; in actuality, it's an organ-buttressed moody piece that flirts with both fusion and reggae. Great stuff!
The nine-minute "Greener" starts life as a jazzy venture that allows Vandenberghe to stretch out on his Rhodes sample as drummer Renaud Van Hooland steps up the syncopated agitations-a-plenty. Soon enough Vervloesem yields another insight into his versatile self as soloist, his improvisation distancing us even further from that nascent notion of what a voxless Toolband might sound like with keys. His "caterwauling" guitar antics in "Tubular Belge" emphasize a similar dynamic (this track also features a guest trumpeter). "–Jacuzzi" is the last of the Vervloesem-Vandenberghe cowrites, the latter's part the role of capricious child whose innocent ruse is dealt with by the former's brutish parent of a guitar. "Canadair" stands by as the band twists free from a hardening mold yet again with a much more straightforward rock number with strummed acoustic guitar and a tempo set at "gallop." Weighing in at eight minutes, "Rue Wéry" is a plodder, fashioning a sonic mucilage and braining your inner brat's desire to want to jack up the BPM. "Pee Detector" lives up to its lovely title by veering between more straight-up rock textures and jazzier feints, and is one of many segments with a nod to King Crimson's mid-'70s period.
Rude just might even prove to be a draining, exhausting experience, but this is aggressive music made by musicians who want to leave an impression. Whichever way you rate it, it's got to be one of the better CDs from Carbon 7 — that is, if you don't mind rockin' out!
Tracklist:
1. Disquiet (4:35)
2. Titanic Again (4:04)
3. N 'Roll (3:20)
4. Experimental Dentition (4:53)
5. Born To Be White (3:18)
6. Greener (9:14)
7. My Flemish Period (3:22)
8. Tubular Belge (4:21)
9. Emile Zola's Jacuzzi (2:26)
10. Canadair (4:38)
11. Rue Wéry (8:41)
12. Add God To Your Misery (4:30)
13. Pee Detector (5:39)
14. St. Guidon (5:50)
Total time – 69:00
Added: May 2nd 2007
Reviewer: Elias Granillo
Score: 
Related Link: Carbon 7 Records
Hits: 3038
Language: english
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Vervloesem, Pierre: Rude
Posted by Kerry Leimer, SoT Staff Writer on 2007-05-02 18:07:45
My Score:
The first encounter I had with Pierre Vervloesem's work was through his bass guitar contributions on David Byrne's music for In Spite of Wishing and Wanting. The music on Rude is some great distance removed from this, but still remarkably smart and intense stuff. That said, I can't account for where Rude fits within his extensive discography, but as an album of unusual power and directness, to fits nicely on the prog shelf, way over at the smart end.
Despite being a four piece comprised of guitar, keyboards, bass and drums the pieces usually sound like the work of some ultra-adept power trio. But gratefully there is as much articulation and subtlety as there are sledge hammers. Vervloesem's guitar is the featured instrument, the pace remains uniformly high and agitated, but always purposeful and occasionally even playful. At times the excursions beyond the instrument – the opening moments of "canadair" and the long "rue Wéry" are genuinely intriguing examples of pure sound – demonstrate his familiarity with more experimental forms which, rather than simply being grafted onto openings and closings serve to create timbral links and associations which continue to resonate within the pieces. This dedication to purpose in favor of the more typical and self-indulgent affectation of ornamentation is the stand out feature of Rude.
There's also a thorough digestion recalling but not copying some King Crimson compositional techniques – principally late-period styles that dwell in structures based upon sudden signature changes, uneven meters, phase-style arpeggiation dressed now and again with more than a few Belew-like honks and whines dropped into a lovely expanse found here or there. This is largely hard edged stuff, at work across the more distorted spectrums of both time and tone. Categorically strong stuff, through and through.
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