Photo credit: Kellen Nordstrom
The sister-brother duo of Wild Belle has a new album out this January and from the early accounts, the effort turns away from the diverse musical styles of 2013’s debut, Isles, which showcased the sounds from the Caribbean, albeit, in an immediate and pop-centric way. The new material strips down most of the unique instrumentation and laid-back Jamaican reggae for more straightforward, high-energy pop music. In that sense, the band’s future appears to be destined for mainstream radio and night club dancefloors rather than the comfortable, dusty confines of NPR. That unabashed transition from music history nerds into full-blown pop superstars began on Monday night at Turner Hall Ballroom, when Natalie and Elliot Bergman and three backing members played the first stop on the band’s fall tour, which featured a horde of brand new songs from the forthcoming album.
Unfortunately, it’s clear that Wild Belle is not quite ready for world domination just yet. Last night’s performance never really found a secure foothold. They seemed to be in a bind all night—either please the crowd with the reggae cuts from the record everyone’s familiar with or work out the new songs in a live setting. The band committed to neither, instead switching back and forth between the two disparate albums, giving the set an uneven and unstable feel. One moment the vibe was chill as the audience swayed to the calm music and the next Wild Belle blistered through an infectious, unstoppable dance song. The pace was either barely moving or whizzing at lightning speed. There was no middle ground.
There were a couple other hitches along the way—a keyboard issue halted the show briefly and the band never truly looked at ease when burning through the new stuff. But there were a few spectacular moments as well, like whenever Elliot Bergman jammed out lengthy solos on his baritone sax or Natalie Bergman took complete control of a song by simply using the force of her powerful voice. It’s hard to fault Wild Belle too much for the shakiness, as the path between world music and pop star is a rocky one, and once they overcome these minor bumps, they’re perhaps destined for a bigger stage.
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