Foehns, The
Better Man (white)
Better Man, the debut album by The Fohns, is the result of a close friendship between two men whose characters are polar opposites. That alone is worth gold. Eindhoven pop heroes Dennis Grotenhuis and Roel Blommers have been working together since the wild punk rock adventure called The Spades. After this they continued to write, arrange and record songs. Record after record appeared, each time different, each time richer and each time under a different name. They thought they felt the hot breath of the pop industry breathing down their necks. But does that breath actually exist? Weren't they themselves the source of that hot breath? Enter The Hair Dryers. Slow down and go into the depths. Their debut features thirteen beautifully crafted listening songs in power pop guise. Imagine Sparklehorse and Elliott Smith in the respectful hands of The Posies, delicacy preserved in the grander gesture. Better Man contains their strongest work to date, car radio pop supreme. Dennis and Roel found a better version of themselves thanks to the efforts of five musician friends from the Eindhoven scene. Ernst-Jan van Doorn (formerly Mozes & The Firstborn and solo as Gooseking 3000) played the bass parts. Rens Ottink (formerly Pauw and currently in the British band Temples) was behind the drums. Tijs Schrijnemakers (Orgel Vreten and currently in Anneke van Giersbergen's band) was responsible for the keyboard work and Bertus Borgers played a flute for the solo in Better Man, while trombonist Mark 'pBone' Boonstra blew All Broke Down to the hopeful finale.