Putting a label on a band like Bellstar or an album like Before a Fall is pointless. Not only do the songs seem to hop genres gently, effortlessly, and just enough to keep the listener guessing, but there is something about the way that the art of songwriting is approached here that is both fresh and familiar. Perhaps the only tag that works to any degree of success is classic, or at least, classic in the making.
Take the opener, “The River Flows,” a blend of rootsy finesse and relentless, restless groove, not quite Americana, too clever to be merely pop, it is deft and delicate yet when it puts its foot on the monitor, becomes energetic, perhaps even euphoric.
Then you get “You Get To Stay,” a blend of late-Beatles-esque experimental pop and timeless West Coast psychedelic vibes. Different again is the balladic, chamber-pop beauty of “All the Pretty Little Horses,” which sounds like a modern take on what a re-imagined sixties might have sounded like at its most ethereal.
And by the time you get to “Animals in the City” and its swathes of rock guitars and darker, brooding undercurrents, you realize that there isn’t a genre that Bellstar can’t make its own.
Genres? They always fall short in the face of the best and most original music.
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