Novastar

NOVASTAR

It took a while, but the fans now know that Joost Zweegers (Novastar) always pulls all the stops when recording a new album. Quality takes time. In the case of Zweegers, four years exactly, the time he needs for every new album.

For his fourth album, entitled Inside Outside, Zweegers enrolled a big name from the music world: the producer John Leckie who worked on Radiohead’s album The Bends, Muse’s Showbiz and Origin of Symmetry, and oversaw the remastering of The Stone Roses compilation. For the sake of convenience, we have omitted a few bands, such as The Verve, Kula Shaker, My Morning Jacket and many more.

But Zweegers found above all a musical soulmate in John Leckie. Someone who shares his love of British pop; songs with big choruses, but small emotions. Together they managed to weave this love into a coherent album, which exudes an ardent, almost brooding atmosphere for 40 minutes. Ardent? Let’s say this is what now characterizes Joost Zweegers’ performances, which undoubtedly mix many songs from the new repertoire with Novastar classics like “Because”, “Mars Needs Woman”, “Wrong” and “Never Back Down”.