The BellRays
Have A Little Faith
Shock


LA's The BellRays have been a nice little secret for a while now. If you ever get the chance, grab a copy of their 2002 album 'Meet The BellRays'. Led by the amazing Lisa Kekaula, The BellRays sound like a young Aretha Franklin or Tina Turner fronting the MC5; an exhilirating collision of punk and soul. The early BellRays recordings are exciting because they know they've discovered something good but they don't quite know how they're doing it.

Unfortunately, that early promise hasn't quite been fulfilled by subsequent releases. It's like they started thinking about and trying to articulate what made it work in the first place, and as soon as you do that, some of the spontaneity and originality gets lost. On 'Have A Little Faith' the BellRays have clearly made a decision to explore their soul potential in more depth. Thus, they get a little more funky and a little less punky, and while it makes sense and it's highly commendable, it ultimately comes across sounding more like a work in progress. The BellRays sounded fantastic when they were thrashing their way out of the garage with a wild soul-woman at the helm; here Kekaula has the soul bases covered, but you wonder if her band has the chops to match their ambition. That said, it might be worth getting in on the secret; who knows, in another five years they might have nailed it.

Peter Strelan