If one and a half minutes is good enough for the Bellrays, then it’s good enough for me, so here goes.
Loud, messy, bluesy, filthy, dirty, growly, surly, heavy, mean, moody and totally, totally uncompromising. On paper it looks good. On paper it looks like everything rock n’ roll should be: quick, painless, brutal and satisfying. Tony Fate’s whirligig guitars spirals out of control to a satisfying degree just below that of the absurd and Lisa Kekaula’s lusty, soulful blast satisfies the very blackest of Motown hearts. But what they possess in pure muscle, they lack in material. Beyond the bluesy descending runs of ‘You’re Sorry Now’, the leathery funk of ‘Used To Be’ and the punky, blistering girly-pop of ‘Find Someone To Believe Me’ it yields a faintly embarrassing dearth of material. Something primal, something raw is one thing – but letting the more spurious excesses of jazz, blues and metal ride rough shod over songs that were simply too ‘loose’ to begin with is nothing less than indulgent. Whilst making all the right noises, ‘The Red, White & The Black’ fails to actually lead anywhere we want to go, pulling instead in separate directions. The sooner Lisa Kekaula grabs a hit with the Jaxx’s ‘Good Luck’ and the sooner Tony Fate hits the basmement, the better.