Europe's Greatest Nits

After 31 years, rock’s best-kept secret are making their London debut. Chris Evans celebrates THE NITS

“Such singularity of vision and maturity of expression as this Dutch rock quartet here display cannot have appeared overnight: they are surely one of rock’s best-kept secrets . . . such haunting quirkiness might keep one beguiled for years”.

That was how Q magazine reviewed The Nits’ eighth album, In The Dutch Mountains, in May 1988. Seventeen years on, you could be forgiven for assuming that they’d long since given up the ghost, because if The Nits were one of rock/pop’s best-kept secrets then, today you’d need stealth technology and a pack of hunting dogs to detect their UK and US profile. Yet few bands anywhere in the world have maintained such a prolific output without pandering to a lucrative formula or succumbing to the clash of inflamed egos.

Suffice to say that in any sane world The Nits would be afforded the same degree of reverence normally accorded such single-minded mavericks as XTC, David Byrne and Kate Bush. Lead singer Henk Hofstede, whose voice is a stirring blend of John Lennon and Elvis Costello, would be assured a place in the pantheon of great frontmen; drummer Rob Kloet hailed as a man who has virtually reinvented the art of rock percussion; and keyboard player Robert Jan Stips (late of Supersister and Golden Earring) venerated …

by Chris Evans
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