A debut album hailing from the heart and bedroom of 19 year old Joewi Verhoeven, Songs That Sell Fish rocks us with a shot of low-fi singer/songwriter melodicism truer and rawer than anything heard in quite some time. A Dutch student studying film in Beijing, Joewi Verhoeven self-recorded this collection of songs before even assembling a band, with the purpose of promoting seaside industries, yes, but nonetheless bringing to the fore a dynamic mess of talent and emotion, a young man wailing and crooning with that often-imitated-rarely-encountered youthful abandon, with guitars echoing as if from the dust and smoke of classic blues and jazz. Imagine young Conner Obherst, before entering the studio, before dabbling absent-mindedly with techno. Imagine young Bob Dylan, before turning to Christianity and Victoria Secret's advertising. Don't rack your brain -- just listen to Arrows Made of Desire's debut album.
Songs That Sell Fish effortlessly spans the genre plane, flying wildly from lo-fi folk [take a gander at the country-cabaret crooning of Lady Nutshell] to gritty indie rock [feel the burn of fiery dirt bomb Truism], the stylistic leaps and diversions reflecting the passion, pain, and convolutions of an artist as a young man, miraculously captured by a crappy microphone with all that low-fi warmth of indie rock in its purest, unfiltered form. Both melodic and noisy, soft and edgy, sweeping yet weightless, Arrows Made of Desire strikes with considerable force; continuing in the vein of indie giants the Pixies, Sonic Youth, and Tom Waits, yet moving beyond, treading new territory in the way that only fearless youth can achieve, Songs That Sell Fish might very well impact modern indie rock in a big way.
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