Private Suit - Bettie Serveert
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  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
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  3. Negative: 0 out of 2

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  1. FrankY.
    Sep 19, 2001
    8
    This is the sound of the Betties all grown up, and a wonderful sound it is. Rich and complex, a very rewarding listen.
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Metascore

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 7
  2. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. PJ Harvey's frequent collaborator John Parish produces, and he brings a dark, melodramatic, and very theatrical sensibility to the songs that is much more interesting--and a much more flattering setting for Carol Van Dyk's expressive but limited vocals--than the straightforward guitar churn that dominated the last couple of albums.
  2. 70
    The potential is here for Bettie Serveert to be marvelous.... But [singer Carol] Van Dijk's always-ominous lyricism, her need to play variations on the fallen and fallow, leaver her warm, tentative voice too vulnerable, too nervously open, too much like a desperate character among the bones of Lou Reed's once-famous dead. [#47, p.86]
  3. Credit much of the album's dusky allure to the atmospheric production of John Parish, which lends a shadowy beauty, revealing new layers of subtlety lurking underneath the band's ragged guitar-pop approach; the focal point is still Van Dijk's searing vocals, which harness the extremes of both pride and desperation to devastating effect.