The Bell Rays - The Raw Collection
By Kevin Hillskemper
The Bellrays –
Raw Collection
Uppercut/Vital Gesture Records
The
Bellrays describe their music as “Maximum Rock and Soul” so
that’s what it is.
This CD is a collection of 7”, 8”, compilation tracks and occasional stray dogs from 1995 to 2002. I plagiarized that almost verbatim from the back cover. That was easy. This review is practically writing itself.
Technically, the band is your basic guitar, bass, drums, vocals thing, but they do a lot with it. They can play. They throw in all kinds of weird chords and time changes but not in a way that’s pretentious or wanky. What really stands out is the voice of singer Lisa Kekaula. She’s very good. I’m sure she’s already been compared to a young Tina Turner so, just to be difficult, I’ll say that she sounds like Steve Marriott of Humble Pie.
The songs here are good but they’re not perfect. The earlier ones
like “You’re Sorry Now” and “Mind’s Eye”
try a little too hard to have too much meaning or significance. Lines
like “shine a light on my mind’s eye” smell a little
like patchouli oil to me. However, despite the youthful self-searching
or whatever, these are great pop songs that are played and sung so well
that you can forgive an occasional forced rhyme. As you hear the band
progress over time, the songs get better, tougher and more confident.
They also get darker and more interesting.
There’s a neat little early Meat Puppets style instrumental and
a couple of novelty pinball songs to lighten things up a bit.
I like it. I give it seventeen shiny things.