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Belles Will Ring Belles Will Ring were different from the average Australian indie band from the get-go. Where, even in this date and age of modern technology revolutionising the music industry, Australian acts have a tendency to unleash EPs as their introduction to the world, Bells Will Ring did it differently. In 2007 they put out their first album, 'Mood Patterns', to great critical acclaim. Instead of following it up with a sophomore set, Belles Will Ring instead have elected to finally getting around to releasing an EP, with 'Broader Than Broadway' appearing towards the end of 2008. "It's not an EP - it's a mini-album," Belles frontman Liam Judson declares. "We never wanted to be an EP band, so we want to be really adamant about that. ['Broader Than Broadway'] seems to be a bit longer than you standard EP anyway - a lot of EPs are four to five tracks, and this is seven songs with an average four minutes or so. You could almost pass it off as an album, if you wanted to, but we deliberately just cut it off before it really reached that optimum album length." Liam explains that the songs found on 'Broader Than Broadway' were the numbers that were kicking around the Belles Will Ring traps without ever really fitting in anywhere - they weren't yet born at the time of the making of 'Mood Patterns', nor did the band see them as appropriate for the eventual follow-up release. "As soon as we finished 'Mood Patterns' and were touring it around, songs started to pop up here," he explains. "We decided to record these songs that had been hanging around for some time and see if there was another record there, for album number two." "But what they turned out to be was a really interesting collection of songs that didn't have too much to do with each or to have much of a common thread, or an idea, or anything like that," he continues. "To me it didn't feel like it was going to be album number two - I really like an album to have a clear direction where you're writing for a purpose." Instead, Belles Will Ring saw that numbers that now appear on 'Broader Than Broadway' as standing on their own. They still wanted the world to hear the tunes, but by putting it out as a mini-album they allowed themselves the time and space to give greater focus to the official full-length follow-up to 'Mood Patterns' at some time in the still yet-to-be-determined future. "We want to write the second album proper with a more defined time," Judson explains of their future intentions. "I love albums as a complete artwork." Preparing himself for the mindspace of writing a cohesive release is something that Liam is already ready to do. "It's well under control," he confirms. "We're germinating ideas: lots of melodies, lots of concepts are being thrown around. We're really defining what it is, and it's pretty exciting to be honest." 'Mood Patterns' established a great base for the band to grow from, and really carve out their niche in the Australian musical landscapes. After the incredible critical response to their debut longplayer and 'Broader Than Broadway' - which has already been touted in broadsheets such as the 'Sydney Morning Herald' as one of the best local releases going around - the next logical step for Belles Will Ring is to turn that critical cache into commercial cash: in short, to break on through to the other side of the indie divide, and be taken as seriously by the public as they have been by the critics. "That would be wonderful!" Judson enthuses. "That is ALWAYS the plan, but we can't think like 'this is going to be the one', because who knows? We'll do everything in our power to try and make that a reality, certainly without sacrificing our vision for the record. "We've got a clear idea of what we want to do and hopefully the two can meet," he says of their creative aims and their commercial aspirations. "We can do a record that we feel we need to make and that we feel needs to be out on the market, and still hopefully get some success out of it." Without wanting to reveal their future plans, Judson does let some tidbits through. "Without it being a concept record," he explains, "I think it will have thematic threads that go through the record. It's so tender, and just germinating, but certainly it might show a little bit of the other side of our musical personalities - it might be a bit richer, a bit more obscure, and give a bit more shivers down the spine. Let's just say that." Andrew Weaver |