Album Review: The Bellrays: Black Lightning

The BellRays
Black Lightning
4/5



To start things off let me show the my twitter post after I listened to the first track.

Rock should be the punch in the gut that reminds you you're still livin'. And thank God right now I think I got some bruised ribs.

The I only started listening to the Bellrays catalogue about two years ago, but damn it was some good stuff and this doesn't album disappoint. To be fair most of it sounds like that wierd place between hard rock, metal and punk in the late 60's and early '70s. Lots of interesting stuff going down man.

The studio was becoming an instrument and at the same time bubbling' below the surface, young rebels were howling at the moon in rage. The idealism of the left was beginning to fade into angry cynicism, and eventually nihilism. If the time to do good is over than you might as well have good times and screw the rest. That fucking malaise of Obam...uh Carter's.



Anyway so I'm probably giving it bonus points because that's my favorite musical era.

But the past month has been waaay too indie for my tastes. I just want old school blazing fast, blazing hard rock and roll. And the Bellrays deliver. God do they deliver.

Don't get me wrong there are some slow songs on this. But the slow songs never seem like they're pandering. Mostly this is due to Lisa Kakuala's voice. She could lift your heart or bend steel with that voice. Hell sometimes she can do both in the same song. The woman has soul. Which is something that disapoints me about the music industry. Over the past year I've heard no shortage of vocal talent and yet ... well that's a tangent.

Anyway look if you want a blast from rock's past this will do you good. If you listen to your parent's old records and go, "Da fuck" you'll do the same here. It's like the old joke in that 70's show. A guy likes this dude's music but he was a douche to him on tour so he tells the clerk, (Hyde) "You got any X but not X" If you want hard rock jams from the 70's but not, The Bellrays will do you good. You can only listen to "Kick out the Jams" so many times.