Roofman doesn’t waste any time: in the very first second of his full-length debut album Still The Mess I Was we immediately get acquainted with his voice and poetic lyrics. We’re talking about Dutch singer-songwriter Thijs van der Meulen, living somewhere in a wooded area in the middle of the country, where he takes the words ‘idyllic’ and ‘melancholic’ to great heights with his songs. Together with his brother Pim van der Meulen (drums) and American session musicians Rhett Shull (guitar) and Philip Conrad (bass) he recorded eleven of those indie pop/folk tracks with sharp rock edges, musing about love, nature and his everyday observations/thoughts (“Put my soul in a song // Just to kill some time” – from Killing Time). Wonderful how the vocals and sound sketch an atmosphere that takes you to another world. This is a beautiful scenic record, anything but messy, rather one for which the term ‘perfect’ has been coined.
Still The Mess I Was, very well produced by Johann Scheerer and with cover art by Julian Deleij, is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP through Clouds Hill.
Add to wantlist: Bandcamp || Clouds Hill