Grote Geelstaart – Wij Zinken – Grote Geelstaart, whoever Grote Geelstaart might be, are said to walk tightropes, they’re said to walk tightropes like an acrobat who knows their balance could be lost at any given moment walks a taught tightrope. They are clearly one of those bands who might not make it to the end of that rope or wherever it is they’re going to and the glorious thing here is that it really is unclear just where that destination might be. Wherever these Dutchmen are going we need to be in on it, that was immediately clear…
The band talk of “noise orchestrated in such a way that it bubbles to a boiling point” of “oblique soundscapes over even more oblique time signatures”, they’re said to “create a live show that is as claustrophobic and cramped as a fish out of water” – can’t really say seeing any kind of fish out of water appeals, seems this particular one is a Great Yellowtail or a grote geelstaar: a yellowtail kingfish (Seriola lalandi), a fast-swimming marine fish. Really need to see this band live, water or no water….
Grote Geelstaar don’t obviously sound like anyone although that bit there, just for a brief moment, sounds like an obtuse Jethro Tull or maybe a new wave Gentle Giant poking at The Fall, that was for only one little bit of their vast tapestry of challenging noise though, for only a minute or so, now they’re sounding a tad like This Heat and now they’ve gone a bit mechanical and a bit Killing Joke around those yellow gills and now they’ve got a bit Kraut Rockish – and all this is fluid, this all over the place review might well suggest the band are all over the place, far from it, this is rewardingly fluid, focussed, lean, proper. Mostly Grote Geelstaar sound like one of those strange 80s European new wave bands that never ever came over here.
They do sound rather menacing, rather like they have no intention of relenting, of yielding or anything else and even when they do step back for a musical breath or two it is still rather intense, rather brooding, rather excellent –
“A mix of progressive noise rock, math rock and psychedelic rock, featuring two live drum kits, complex time signatures, and lyrics sung in Dutch. On stage the band members wear white dress shirts and ties…” They are brothers Jeppe Rottier and Jespered Rottier, their cousins Danny Rottier and Finley Nijsse, and school friend Luuk Bosma and they’ve been around since 2022. They’re from from Zeeland and Leiden in the Netherlands…
No idea what they’re on about, it is indeed all Dutch to us, you sense it really means something though, whatever they’re on about it is clearly something important. Everything about Grote Geelstaart’s lyrics sounds intense, as does whatever they’re playing, whatever they’re knitting together with so much commitment. They sound like they want to challenge themselves as much as they want to challenge us; the quiet reflective bits – that long passage that’s part of the six and bit minutes of De Kering – the quiet bits are as intense as the bits that attack, all of it as colourfully intense, the quiet bits as much as the abrasive bits and none of it ever obvious. They are very obviously rather good, they are very obviously highly recommended… to be continued (sw)
There some live dates down the page including London, Brighton and Bristol dates in November
Bandcamp / www.grotegeelstaart.com / Instagram
Forthcoming dates…
28/10/2026 TGBB Festival, Supersonic, Paris
29/10/2026 TRIX, Antwerpen (SOLD OUT)
05/11/2026 Burgerweeshuis, Deventer
12/11/2026 V11, Rotterdam (SOLD OUT)
20/11/2026 De Grote Post, Oostende
21/11/2026 Skatecafé, Amsterdam
26/11/2026 The George Tavern, London
27/11/2026 Volks Club, Brighton
28/11/2026 The Lanes, Bristol
18/12/2026 EKKO, Utrecht
08/11/2027 De Piek, Vlissingen
