4 out of 5

Label: 54’40 or Fight!

Producer: Dan Dixon (Engineer, Mixing)

Arriving at a slim eight tracks and 30ish minutes, Dropsonic’s Belle is an unbelievably hard-hitting and satisfying slam of rock, Zeppelin riffs and Thom Yorkey crooned vocals the first and easy (and accurate) references on most minds as soon as the first lyric and guitar slide happens in opener ‘Stolen’.  While the tracks – averaging four minutes – are given plenty of room to breathe, overall, the production isn’t, with a thick low-end balancing out the glittering guitar and forefront singing, meaning that while all of the tracks are instantly enjoyable, there can’t be a standout single since they’re all played to the max.  Closer ‘No Reply’ is deserving of a slower lead-in, for example, but is too busy in and of itself to be the triumphant finale, and even slower and quieter tracks like ‘Take a Picture’ sound so rich that calling it ‘slower’ and ‘quieter’ is more an afterthought than what comes to mind when you’re tapping your toe.   This even playing ground goes along with the lyrics as well – solid with some clever concepts, but fret the line between normal and poetic such that a singular chorus or phrase doesn’t get you going so much as the rhythm and composition of the entire song.

And for once – it really is that simple.  Other Dropsonic releases would push and pull the rock wagon to generate some higher highs and lower lows, but ‘Belle’ is a pretty ideal slice of energy, with just enough meat to linger but not so much excess that you can’t just leave it on repeat.