Pop, all too often, looks towards rock or indie music for its magic ingredients, those unexpected inclusions which helps the music take one step away from the norm and two more towards the unique. Like I Love This certainly touches on those areas but it is the inherent soulfulness which is perhaps the unexpected element here. And for a band based in and out of a number of prominent US cities, ones with their own long and rich musical heritages, there is a very British influence going on too. And any band that reminds me of Everything But The Girl is definitely one which I want to know more about.
Growing Pains is a lovely, spacious opening salvo, one which blends shimmering sonic textures with ever-rising vocal urgency and the title track is a gorgeous and gentle chill-out which wanders the soul-pop territory that Norah Jones owned in the early 2000’s. And between such points on the sonic spectrum, chilled indie cool and spacious soulful minimalism, Charlie Belle deliver songs which are both accessible and wonderfully astute, especially in the way that they cut their sonic cloth, using only what the song requires.
Some music seems to try too hard to make you like it, Charlie Belle makes music which is just so easy to be around, so wonderfully understated, so modest, that you can’t help but fall in love with it. That’s just how love works, I don’t make the rules.
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