Dutch Tulips have many great elements to their music. This is an album that feels equally 60’s garage rock inspired and 90’s Alternative with spillover into early 2000’s indie influence. The vocals are anything but plain, great call and response parts, harmonies, and they seem to bend to what each song needs. In the quirky dark track “Rosemary’s Baby” the singer gives almost a Paul Banks of Interpol impression where Jack Holland sounds uncannily like the singer. Every track harkens back to bits and pieces of popular Alt. hits of the last 30 years, one minute it’s like The Toadies or The Dandy Warhols and the next minute it’s The Killers and Muse. Occasionally Holland sounds like Sea Wolf’s Alex Church. All these comparisons just show how familiar this album is going to sound to anyone just upon first listen.
I was surprised to see Holland is only in his early 30’s but writes like an indie rock guy who has been around the block for a few decades. With respects to songwriting Holland was quoted in a 2018 Somerville Times piece as saying: “The Dutch Tulips take pop songs and often pervert the themes and sounds and deliver it all with passion and emotional immediacy. At once neurotic and gratifying, the Tulips pay tribute to bands like Weezer, the Cars, and the Beach Boys.” So seeing as those three bands inspired so many other bands, it’s easy to see why the Tulips have this sound that is hard to describe aside from it’s eclectic within the certain genres they borrow from. I would venture to say songs like “Better Than A Soul” is Spoon inspired with its cadence and falsetto parts. Then by the next track the band is giving their best early 2000’s Jimmy Eat World impression on “Sick Middle”. Now all these comparisons are not to say in any way this is a band who has no style of their own, it’s quite the opposite. They have used this huge arsenal of influence to mold and create a sound that is all their own and enjoyable. They seem to never try the same exact thing twice; everything though still fits to make a very cohesive enjoyable album. Usually I’m a proponent of shorter albums because most bands include filler for everything over 8 tracks but Dutch Tulips are one of the few bands recently that puts together an album that is great from the first note to the last note.
Check out “Tell Me Your Codes” below, and look for the full album to drop 4/23.
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- Sam Lowry