Heather McEntire spent some of her time between the release of Bellafea’s initial offering, an EP called Family Tree released four years ago, and this debut LP, Cavalcade, playing solo shows in small clubs. She’d sit right in front of the crowd, strumming and singing softly with her acoustic guitar, with no voice amplification. She’d even ask that the crowd stay quiet so she could sing, sometimes in a slight whisper, and still be heard. On the other hand, Bellafea gigs, with McEntire instead on electric playing next to Eddie Sanchez (bass) and Nathan Buchanan (drums), have a contrary energy that is raucous with intimidating fervor. You gotta shout to converse on those nights.
The crowds on the solo nights were most likely full of friends and loved ones who would gladly oblige the request for close listening, sitting, standing, or leaning shoulder-to-shoulder in rapt admiration. Cavalcade has nothing and everything to do with these moments of sincere sharing. I say nothing because this is not a quiet album. Most of the tracks revel in brashness; the opening verse is growled into existence with the fierceness of a sow1 defending her cubs. “Geography” swells with twisted guitar notes, then denudes itself with chunkier riffs before breaking into a march of tight snare. Then, suddenly, Bellafea back it up and do it over again in a totally dissonant and snarly sort of way. Although “Telling the Hour” is slower, it’s not at all subdued. From the bombastic pounding Buchanan strokes on his set, to the chorus of voices backing McEntire in the latter half, this work is commanding and decisive. Bellafea is not for the faint of heart.
The sound is centered in the trio, but a whole host of friends pitched in to create this album’s large sound, a testament to what Bellafea means to North Carolina. From John Darnielle (Mountain Goats), Daniel Hart (Physics of Meaning, Polyphonic Spree), and Ben Davis (Sleepytime Trio) to Eric Moe (Zegota) and Dave Laney (Milemarker), with production credits from Brian Paulson and Nick Peterson, and lord-knows-what from author Brad Lands, there is a thick bouillabaisse stewing here that you might smell from the road on your way in. A moonshine still and late-night shotgun blasts run all through the CD, a fuck-it-all spirit that owes itself in no small way to this band’s uncanny proclivity for captivating friends and hauling along compatriots.
Chapel Hill is forever blessed and doomed to be inextricably tied to its indie-rock history from the mid-’90s. It’s a shame, since bands like Bellafea are inevitably subjected to casual, ill-conceived comparisons to predecessors from the NC Piedmont like Superchunk. I’ll admit that this band is not necessarily forging new ground with the release of this rock album; comparisons are easy because many musical antecedents can be easily identified from the form and function of each song’s progression. Yet this is a release that should be left wholly independent from that ’90s rock scene legacy. Bellafea could easily represent a progression by part of the Chapel Hill scene away from that old sound. Moreover, Cavalcade is a revival, a tent full of raw emotion bringing people together who wanna throw themselves down with no shame. You can hear the studio of friends in devilish communion, intertwining into a lovely and fierce construct.
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