The Black Belles: An Album A Day

An album a day is posted 5 days a week, Monday-Friday

            In the music industry there is a tried and true formula for making money, get a group of attractive young, mildly talented girls and give them something to sing. The Black Belles are the Third Man Records equivalent of the girl group. Featuring Third Man Records multi instrumentalist Olivia Jean as front woman of the quartet, The Black Belles truly encapture the Third Man Records blues rock sound.

The four piece consists of Ruby Rogers on bass guitar, Shelby Lynne on drums, Christina Norwood on synth and Olivia Jean with vocals, guitar and organ duties. One of the first things that struck me with their self titled album is that only one song, “Honky Tonk Horror” eclipses the 3 minute mark and the entire album being around 27 minutes long.

The first few tracks start off strong, with the opener “Leave You With With a Letter” being one of the strongest on the album. This track features a driving blues rock guitar and distorted bass riff as the centerpiece while the drums pound out in a 3/4 tempo. The psychotic waltz fits with Jean’s vocals in both tone and delivery as she goes up and down in pitch to match the guitar. This is one of the tracks where the Belles shine the brightest, displaying their own twist on the Third Man sound.

Unfortunately for most of the albums the Belles sound like a tribute band, owing equal parts of their sound to Jack White and Kills frontwoman Alison Mosshart. They come by it honestly with Jean herself having been a feature in Jack White’s backing band, but it would be nice for them to cultivate more of their own style. Rather than having their own sound,  The Belles often sound like a poor man’s copy of White and Mosshart’s supergroup, The Dead Weather.
    While sounding similar to The Dead Weather is not a bad thing by itself, the Belles do little to bring anything new to the Goth Blues Rock sound that they share. The similarities go so far that it sounds like Christina Norwood is playing the exact synthesizer that Dean Fertita uses with The Dead Weather.

In fairness, The Belles do have a few songs where they do add their own twist on the sound, such as Breathing Down My Neck. This track jumps back and forth between loud fuzz guitar filled verses and a calmer folk styled chorus. While it features some of the same elements as The Dead Weather, Jean adds enough of her own style to where she doesn’t just sound like a Mosshart imitator. Jean’s guitar solo towards the end of the track is rather simple blues rock fare, but it serves the song and leads to the outro.

None of the other tracks are particularly bad, but they also are not anything special. Songs like “The Tease”, “Honky Tonk Horror” and “Pushing Daisies” lack an original style, while “Hey Velda” and “Howling At The Moon” are just boring. Olivia Jean is clearly a talented singer, but for much of the album she lacks a distinct sound and the album suffers for it.

Ultimately, most of this album is solid with a few real gems that stick out. Fans of garage rock and alternative artists like Jack White, The Kills or Queens Of The Stone Age will likely enjoy this album, as well as those putting together a Third Man Records playlist. But for me, to be honest when I hear The Black Belles I would rather just go listen to The Dead Weather.

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