Album Review: Still Willing by Personal Trainer

The Amsterdam collective have taken the ‘anything goes’ template applied to their debut Big Love Blanket, and turned it up to 10 There’s an awful lot going on with Still Willing, the Dutch band Personal Trainer‘s second album. The Amsterdam collective have taken the ‘anything goes’ template applied to their debut Big Love Blanket, and turned it up to 10. It makes for a dizzying, disorientating, but ultimately rewarding experience.

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Throughout Personal Trainer’s new LP’s 40-minute duration, you may feel like you’re listening to Modest Mouse, Guided By Voices, the Flaming Lips, Pavement, Sparklehorse, the Strokes, and maybe even a little Coldplay. You’ll also hear shouty, abrasive mathcore, woozy psychedelic prog, and sunshiney folk. While Still Willing might not be the most original indie rock ever etched into vinyl, it still sounds fresher, individualistic, and more personal than their first record.

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Photo by Tomvan Huisstede Having pushed play on track one of Personal Trainer's new album without reading any notes, its hyper specific Melbourne referencing title "Upper Ferntree Gully" had me expecting to hear a sardonic Aussie voice either celebrating or bemoaning their outer suburban upbringing. Instead, a Dutch woman speaks "Dat klinkt ook heel lekker natuurlijk, Upper Ferntree Gully, haha!" Personal Trainer is Amsterdam musician Willem Smit, and his mother is bemused and delighted that he is writing a song about her birthplace. It's a singularly apt beginning of an album on which Smit explores growing up and reflects on how the assumption of responsibility grants perspective on relationships with both family of birth and family of choice.

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