Bel Auburn

Undoubtedly, "Cathedrals" by Bel Auburn is the most beautiful album I’ve heard in ages. It is neither pretty nor gorgeous. It is simply devastatingly beautiful. Bel Auburn is a classic rock band that’s been enchanted. The melodic sound is textured and layered. Each instrument’s energy remains proportional with one another. And, it does help that the singer has a mesmerizing voice.

The words are also placed together meticulously, in a most perfected fashion. Bel Auburn poses striking images from the opening lines: “in the quiet burn of halos…” Other utterly celestial pictures they paint are “all the air above us sings, into melodies we fold,” and “holds all the light like glass.” Numerous references to flying, heaven, angels, the sky and light make this an uplifting experience. The lyric booklet also includes a small story alongside each song. These vignettes are as beautiful as the lyrics. They tell human stories of deep emotions explained only through poignant metaphors.

A strong Christian influence is prominent through each song and vignette. This religious affiliation won’t prevent nonbelievers from enjoying something so sharply stunning, however. But at the same time, their sincere faith and trust while you’re told to “sing what you mean,” is so admirable. Their genuineness touches you. Cathedrals exhibits Bel Auburn’s commendable musicianship, earnest effort and passionate originality that left me overcome with awe. #! - Threeimaginarygirls.com

Ashland, Ohio’s city website says, “Our community truly enjoys the best of both worlds. We have the quietness and safety of a small town, mixed with the technology and opportunities of a large city.” Like their hometown, Bel Auburn offers quiet familiarity, quaintness, and a little something bigger. This quintet flexes many of the same muscles as the great unsung emo and indie rock bands of the mid-nineties, most notably Seam, Mineral, Christy Front Drive, and Texas Is The Reason (especially on “The Speed Of Thought,” “Sing What You Mean,” and “Polestar”). Thankfully, when the band gets the urge to pick up an acoustic guitar (“Glass”), they rely more on the legacy left by Elliott Smith or championed by Currituck County, than the swag that poseur with the pompadour is selling as emo. They also offer a bit of progressiveness here, in both concept (each song is the response to a different vignette about Cathedrals) and production value (discovered much later that it was John Fintel at Relay Recordings who cranked the knobs. That MF is like the Mark Trombino of Ohio). Bel Auburn’s octave playing goes toe to toe with a Jimmy Eat World, and their piano skills ring of the same subtle swing as a Coldplay (“Hands. Away”). The final track shows the band ending on a very high note; if Mineral had covered Radiohead’s “High & Dry” it might have sounded a lot like BA’s “Cathedral Vision.” Though Ashland isn’t any place I’d like to spend more than a day or two, Bel Auburn’s Cathedrals delivers enough of a unique take on a sound that I have nostalgia for to warrant an extended stay in my CD player.
-Tim Anderl, Bettawreckonize.com - Bettawreckonize.com

This is an album full of promising beginnings and disappointing conclusions. Like a middling, second-rate mixture of Coldplay and Mineral (heavy on the Mineral), Bel Auburn have no problem constructing songs that are “pretty” and “nice” but can rarely figure out where to go from there. The album opens relatively strong with “The Speed of Thought”. It’s got a pretty typical “attention getter” melody, but the ultra catchy chorus vocal is what really sets the song apart. “How Not to Get Caught” also boasts an excellent vocal hook but yet another cliche melody comes along with it.

“Bright” is an example of one of those “disappointing conclusions” I talked about. Those first two songs I mentioned kind of got me thinking this album might be a little something more than cookie-cutter emo rock, but then “Bright” came along and convinced me otherwise. The song starts out with some muffled acoustic strumming recorded in mono for a couple measures before “bursting” into full-band stereo -- probably one of the oldest and most played tricks in the book. The whole song, in fact, seems to have been borrowed from that same book. All of its chord changes, drum beats and bass lines have been played out a million times before. The song eventually attempts to drag itself out of tedium by building to a noisy, climactic ending, but pounding the crash cymbal and strumming a little faster makes the conclusion sound much more awkward than dynamic.

The rest of the album follows a similar pattern -- a somewhat good song followed by a painfully mediocre one. “Hands, Away” is easily the best track on the record. It’s got a perfectly fitting beat, a sweet haunting trumpet line and a lazy but enveloping guitar hook. It’s a shame that such an excellent song should also be followed up by such a cheesy, forgettable one like “Polestar”... another unfortunate disappointment. But at least by that point you’re already half-expecting it. This album is so close to being good that it hurts. - Decapolis

Out of Ashland, Ohio comes indie rock act Bel Auburn. These guys are unlike anything you’ve heard before, somehow giving new meaning to the phrase "melodic rock" and yet never losing their indie-edge. They’re the kind of band that you are either going to love or hate. There’s not really much room for middle ground here.

Cathedrals opens with "The Speed of Thought", a four-and-a-half minute song with a mere five lines. The opening guitar riffs play out like the beginning of an emo-flavored song, and it’s over a minute into the track before the vocals finally kick in. Unique in and of themselves, the vocals are somewhat reminiscent of the equally as unique vocals of House of Heroes or Sleeping at Last. They seem to be distant, yet intimate.

Lyrically, romantic love seems to be the topic of choice. Though, sometimes, it appears the band may be talking about a love for God, and the love He has for us. The difference is never clearly defined. The songs are all very well written, however, adding even more depth to this superb release.

Bel Auburn is a band to keep your eyes on. The recording quality is not up to par, but these guys have enough going for them to get a long way in the music industry, possibly even mainstream. Bel Auburn has an incredible future to look forward to, and I anticipate it greatly - jesusfreakhideout.com

Indulge Bel Auburn in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure quandary: Imagine yourself a member in an indie outfit of mid-twentysomethings who wants to make a record that reaches artistic peaks only a band like Radiohead has scaled. Do you

a.) Throw in the towel and fill out an application at the local Starbucks?
b.) Buy a bigger amp, sport your sister’s slit prom dress and settle for becoming the next “The Darkness”?
c.) Submerge yourself in your parents’ garage, rename the band “The Grungies” and pretend you don’t know how to play your instruments?
d.) Shoot for the stars knowing full well that, while you’re destined to fail, you still might end up with a pretty solid debut on your hands?

Though choosing c is the only sure-fire path to a lucrative record deal in the present musical clime, Bel Auburn, as we hope you’ve guessed, opted for d and, in the resulting album, Cathedrals, they find themselves on terra pretty darn firma.

As debuts go, Bel Auburn impresses with their reluctance to play it close to the vest. These ten songs certainly aren’t stylistically groundbreaking, or even trendsetting, but they are sophisticated, whimsical and, most of all, earnest.

Singer Scott Williams has an endearing voice—at once vulnerable and pining—that soars above the instrumentation on tracks like “The Speed of Thought” and “Sing What You Mean”. The guitar work is densely layered, less concerned with progression than repetition. Wall-of-sound atmospherics dominate here, leaving Williams ample room to improvise. The drumming, though, seems to want to go faster than it can, though this may be more attributable to a paucity of production acumen than a shortcoming of the musicianship.

Like others in the herd of Radiohead-influenced bands (Coldplay, Interpol, Travis, Palo Alto and Remy Zero, to name a few), Bel Auburn shares an affinity for sparkling, emotive vocals against a backdrop of introverted instrumentation. These guys aren’t interested in rocking out. They’re content to sing about their woe and, in the process, woo your girlfriend right out of her panties. And, in this, Bel Auburn is remarkably successful. Cathedrals seeps at the edges with emotion. No doubt for some, this will constitute an unpardonable turnoff, but at what National Indie Convention did earnestness become a no-no, anyway?

“Sing What You Mean” labors past an intro that’s weighted down by heavy-footed drumming, only to abruptly stretch out into a gorgeous chorus, as Williams sings, “Sing what you mean when you notice me / Noticing you”. On “How Not to Get Caught”, Williams’ voice is well-matched with a simple piano accompaniment that builds to something that would not have raised an eyebrow were it included on Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head.

“Glass”, barely a minute of music, showcases Williams’ voice as it slips in between an acoustic guitar and violin. A minute long song usually indicates a studio throwaway spliced into the mix to fill out a slim album, but “Glass” is the exception. Who said something so brief couldn’t be so satisfying? Besides my girlfriend.

“Physics for Poets” rides a flabby guitar riff that is simply too familiar to impress and a couple of the songs here (“Bright” and “Polestar”) are a bit too similar sounding for this reviewer’s palate. However, on “Hands, Away” Bel Auburn pushes the creative envelope furthest. A venerable orchestration of instruments (violin, trumpet, plus the usual suspects) unfurls over an inexplicably gentle industrial beat, forming a delicate, ornate musical tapestry which perfectly evokes the bleakness of midwinter in the Midwest. A gem.

Bel Auburn shows a lot of promise here, but they’ve yet to take the sound they inherited from their favorite band and make it their own. Debuts, however, are more about showing off one’s talent, and Bel Auburn has some to burn. I just hope my girlfriend isn’t listening. - Stylus Magazine

Cathedrals, the full-length debut from Ashland's ambitious indie-rock troupe Bel Auburn, is as ornate and exquisitely crafted as its titular buildings. Consisting of 10 songs and 10 vignettes, the latter of which all contain a pronounced spiritual bent, this is a collection of stained-glass pop and literature that's unabashedly sweeping in scope.

"It's not the math that's all wrong, just a lack of heat," frontman Scott Williams sings at one point, attempting to correct the imbalance that plagues much of modern rock by complementing swelling, sophisticated pop with unchecked emoting. Climactic slash-and-burn emo ("The Speed of Thought") crescendos next to papiér-mâché ballads, beautified by piano ("How Not to Get Caught") and trumpet ("Hands, Away"), with Williams's pleading lilt often rocketing to an exultant yelp. When it's all said and done, Cathedrals casts a long shadow over Bel Auburn's indie rock contemporaries. - Cleveland Scene