Gregory Bell makes music that sits at a crossroads in the musical landscape. It’s a place where more underground urges run into outright commercial potential and where pure pop is coloured by more urban traditions. It’s a fantastic place to make your home. It means that for every pop picker drawn to the song’s easy ways and addictive and brilliantly repetitious nature, you will find a fan of an edgier sound, one that perhaps better appreciates the skittering tick of trap percussion which weaves through the more dance-orientated bass beats.
And With Her is the best of both worlds. The lyrics are light and accessible, but the music is textured and layered to provide real depth. And even though the message is simple, a declaration of devotion…a love song, it is a track with more going on than first meets the ear.
It’s a great balancing act if you can pull it off, a fine, sonic, highwire walk between cult sounds and chart-bound commerciality, between the styles and scenes of the past and those of the present. And it is through such attractive opposites that the shape of the future and tomorrow’s music is forged.
[…] Gregory Bell‘s latest album, aptly titled The Lady’s Man, sits at the sharp end of such traditions. It is an album that discusses love from many angles; romance, love, longing and lust, but also dealing with loss and the breakup of relationships. […]