The Tilburg singer-songwriter Jacques Mees has written his most personal album THIN ICE.  The CD - was recorded live with a limited audience, it contains eleven new original songs, which almost without exception radiate a high degree of melancholy and nostalgia.

Mees accompanies himself solely on the guitar in a brilliant way and so he creates a fantastic atmosphere.

The personality lies not only in the fact that all the songs are original Mees compositions but especially in the subjects that the Brabant music veteran covers on this CD.

Some songs tell about the almost certain impossibility of finding a stable love relationship and feeling what this causes.

Examples include ALL BECAUSE OF YOU and GANG BANG RITUAL, with the difference that in the first one there is hope for better times which in GANG BANG you hear cynicism.

In GANG BABG Mees is not to happy with the female part of humanity. That this view has gotten no solid ground by him shows for example in SWEET-SWEET LIFE and CRACKS ON THE ICE in which life does not always bring what the singer wishes but which nevertheless there can be detected that he relies on better times.

Genuinely moving in terms of theme, are the songs sneaked OUT OF HEAVENS DOOR, in which Jacques Mees sings to his deceased father and is not ashamed to tell him that he loves him more than when he was alive and AMELIA VERA, a beautiful ode to his still unborn grandchild for whom he promises to become a good grandfather.

The melodies of the two songs are so wonderfully fitting that they enhance the songs to the highlights of the CD.

What also could be the "highlight", in my opinion is the song JOLIE JACQUELINE in which Mees declares his love to Jacqueline  in an extremely extraordinary original way.

And which again shows that a well-assorted vegetable and fruit-detailliste is able by means of exotic delicacies and vitamin rich vegetables, to steal the heart of a seasoned musician. Food is still the way to a man’s heart!

Jacques Mees is not only a romanticist on the new CD. He obviously always is in a tradition. Many people know the Tilburger as the Bob Dylan from Brabant because of the exceptionally meritorious way he covers the American folk singer.

That Mees feels at home in the tradition of men like Bob Dylan and Woody Guthrie shows in the compositions DOLLAR BLUES and GAS STATION JUNKIE.

It could just be able that the classic blues standards come from Dutch origin. But that is in the future and Jacques Mees realize that like no other. This thought appears from the last track of the CD, which is the title track; THIN ICE. Nothing is certain, is the message, it can suddenly all be differently.

Furthermore it is about time that Jacques Mees always is mentioned in the same sentence as the maestro Dylan. To start off with Mees plays much better, nicer and neater the guitar. And with these eleven new songs, he is also shows enough evidence of how compositional he is.

And if there is necessarily still comparisons to be made then this is one is much better, in Tilburg, lives the Dutch Steve Earle. This, incidentally, is almost a contemporary of Jacques Mees and in terms of musical ideas and subject choices a much better benchmark.

Is there nothing that is less to like of THIN ICE? Yes! First of all the cover of the CD contains frustrating little information.

For intimate friends of the singer this is perhaps no handicap, but it is for the general public that deserves this record.

Furthermore, it is recommend that Jacques Mees makes contact with an American employee of the Tilburg Rock Academy. Her name is Buffi Duberman and in the past she has assisted numerous bands and artists in how to express them self’s in the English language. Here and there Mees uses sentences that contain too much clichés or downright twisted English. This  is a stain on a cozy, intimate album!

 

Rutger van Santen, Tilburg, november 2012 

 

 

 

" Masterpiece " - Jacques Mees - out - take, album " Thin Ice ".