Simplicity

There’s no stairway to heaven for major chords on Belasco’s debut album Simplicity. There are no major chords at all, in fact.

Opener ‘Mask’ and second track ‘Car’ are models of the British trio’s miserablist form. Fantastically gloomy intros stroll across the aural landscape before heightening into unexpected loveliness – albeit of a minor chord kind.

As the sombre lifts to the spiritual, mainman Tim Brownlow’s vocals achieve the paradoxical feat of sounding both poignantly tender and coolly detached. Although on ‘Nothing’ his voice bears traces of David Byrne’s whiplashed moan, over the course of eight tracks he succeeds in establishing his own unique blend of beguiling edginess.

Lyrically, he is both ominously opaque and gloriously suggestive. Tracks contain such riddlers as “I’m a violent man and I do what I can/They crawl inside/ I’m an angry man and it’s not part of my/Plan/They fall/We hurt/I die” (‘Psycho’).

Unfortunately, Belasco’s over-reliance on similar song structures lessens the brilliant intensity of Simplicity’s best moments. While the band acquit themselves skilfully, after a while the repetitiousness of their style begins to dilute rather than enhance Brownlow’s vocals.

The lack of momentum to the band’s brand of melancholy allows the last three tracks to splutter out like so many damp squibs. The seven-minute closing track is sheer filler, while the harsh piano plonking combined with meandering vocals on ‘Gorky’ achieves little beyond irritation.

That said, Simplicity contains enough moments of gorgeous originality to mark Belasco out from the pack.

A promising, if flawed, debut.