Hailing from Chicago, Andrew Belle recently performed at the SXSW music festival, where he recieved a fairly good reception from the crowds there.
It's easy to see why, after a listen of his first EP, All Those Pretty Lights. It opens strongly with the track I'll Be Your Breeze, with a strong beat and a sound that sounds very similar to The Fray and Brett Dennan, but far better than the two of them.
All Those Pretty Lights is a good, abit short, listen, and it provides a good introduction to this 24 year old singer. It feels light and free, unconstrained by any need to be overly hip or trendy, although this is certainly a style that will likely be picked up and utilized as such somewhere down the road. The five songs are energetic and well written, with a good sound overall. This is a good starting point for an upcoming artist, and according to his website, he is currently working on his first full-length album.
While All Those Pretty Lights sounds good overall, there are a couple flaws with the EP - The first is that the opening track, I'll Be Your Breeze, is the only one to really stand out from the other four - it is by far the strongest of the album, and while this isn't a long listen (the EP tracks in at 20 or so minutes), Belle's overall sounds is fairly uniform throughout, the same drone that both The Fray and Dennen share, a sound that I'm not particularly fond of - I think it sounds a bit drawlish and lazy, but in this instance, Belle is the strongest of the three, and he really makes the sound for for him.
This isn't out of the ordinary for any artist really - an introductory EP is a first impression, and anyone who listens to enough music will know that first impressions are generally illusions, as artists will switch up their sound as they improve over their careers (or until they hit it big and essentially repeat their successes, but there's a long way to go here), and this is a very promising start for Andrew Belle. I am paticularly eager to hear what he has to say next, and I do hope that he'll give us an album that is just as interesting, although hopefully a little more diverse, in the coming months.
I'll Be Your Breeze - Andrew Belle
