…Full of quality songs which can be seen as an acid trip, but occasionally feeling empty and stretched, the Surfers had many people freaked with this. Rembrandt Pussyhorse may be the lost child on the pile of early work genius dug up by the band, but it definitely holds its own even against Locust Abortion Technician and Hairway to Steven. It is recommended that this album be played in the dark, or with ear bleeding volume. Or if possible both.
Icarus-like, Rembrandt flew ever higher towards the sun - the most successful artist in the richest city on earth, 17th-century Amsterdam. He lived like a prince and he loved living like a prince. But when his fall came - deep into bankruptcy and scandal, poverty and unfashionability - far from destroying him, it took him to new creative heights and a sense of humanity and the human condition that speaks more directly to us today than Rembrandt in his heyday. Simon Schama celebrates the masterpieces of the last years to coincide with the National Gallery's major exhibition on late Rembrandt.