Chris Kok & Civil Union: Loose Ends

Loose Ends, the debut full-length album by Dutch pop band Chris Kok & Civil Union is a dead ringer for this year's best albums list. Amsterdam based singer-songwriter Chris Kok had a vision, turning his solo material in fully arranged pop symphonies and that dream became true with help from his band Civil Union. Well versed in musical theory he could tell his musicians exactly what to play, but also left space to come up with their own ideas.

Kicking of with the dreamy gospel-tinged Hit A Wall the band comes into their own during Neon, with a lead guitar part a la George Harrison. Chris Kok doesn't hide his musical influences, but uses them as a stepping stone to get to the next level. if a song like Snowfall needs a string quartet to make it work, he gets one.

Switching from Bernstein to rock and back? No problem, Solution shows it can be done, with a big Broadway musical brass heavy ending as the icing on the cake. Pastoral Pink Floydian songs like Acedia and Go On show his subdued side, before ending the album with the ambitious Sound Of Sirens, tipping his hat to progressive rock and Radiobead's OK Computer.

Chris Kok & Civil Union:
Chris Kok: vocals, guitar, keyboards, glockenspiel
Joost le Feber: drums, percussion
Lyckle de Jong: keyboards
Wessel van der Kroef: guitar
Tom Meijer: guitar
David Stapel: bass