Deena & Jim is overwhelming, impressive and epic. Singer Anouk (48) delivers a real masterpiece with her new album. With the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and the songs of Anouk and Martin Gjerstad you will feel like you are in Hollywood, but back in the 1950s.
Despite the PR campaign culminating in the interview in a snack bar conducted by the returned Matthijs van Nieuwkerk and Anouk’s somewhat irritable appearance on the talk show Khalid & Sophie, the listening sessions Deena & Jim Everthing okay.
Overly personal
Anouk takes the lead Deena & Jim absolutely everything. It is excessively personal, sometimes bombastic and what is intended as a love letter gradually turns into an intense melancholy about life and death that you have to be able to cope with. It is un-Dutch good, but that also applies to the singer’s entire oeuvre on the previous 13 albums.
Why Do You Hate Me So Much, When I Die and the ‘sing-along’ Everything You Are Will Be Lost are not exactly intended as thigh-slappers. The lyrics are permeated with fatalism, but you immediately succumb to the impressive music and Anouk’s singing that comes from her toes.
Love epic
Anouk’s concerts next year in the Ziggo Dome (with the Metropole Orchestra) are completely sold out. This cinematic epic yearns for many more concerts, and perhaps even a film of this love epic. And so the best Dutch singer has once again proven that she is at the top.
Anouk joked in one of the many interviews that she feels at home with this music, accompanied by a large orchestra, but that it is difficult to exploit it commercially. Whatever.
Earphones in, Spotify on, and enjoy Deena & Jim. An hour for yourself and Anouk. You will not regret it.
