It was a pleasant surprise to hear that White Rose Transmission was revived. In the late 90’s, this somewhat ‘all-star’ project delivered two excellent albums. Among its main members were Carlo van Putten (The Convent) and Adrian Borland (The Sound). After Borland disappeared from the earthly stages, WRT came to a halt too.

But recently Van Putten met a new musical friend: guitarist Rob Keijzer. They started to work on some songs and before they knew a new White Rose Transmission album was born. Of course they were not on their own: the excellent keyboard-player Florian Bratmann joined them, while others musical guests include Mark Burgess (The Chameleons) on bass and David Maria Gramse on violin. The album is released by Pop One Records, earlier responsible for the posthumous Adrian Borland album “The Amsterdam Tapes”.

Don’t expect spectacular musical innovations on “Bewitched & Bewildered”. Instead the listener is offered a collection of honest, mainly acoustic pop songs, created with a lot of craftmanship and passion. Perhaps you can call the album a bit old-fashioned (including the length of just over 30 minutes), but there is nothing wrong with that in my opinion. The songs are well-written and you can feel the emotions put into them. My favourite songs: the melancholic title track, the nicely melodic ‘Drama queen’ and the moving ‘After the fire’.

The first edition of the album comes with a bonus mcd with three cover songs. With the help of guitarist Marty Willson Piper (The Church), Van Putten performs three songs originally recorded by female artists: All About Eve, Eddie Brickell and Heather Nova. The songs are well-chosen and it’s a nice effect to hear them delivered with a different voice.

Author: HD. Published on: Thursday, November 9th, 2006.
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