This is Sasha Bell's first ever solo album after a career playing and I assume singing in among others The Essex Green, Ladybug Transistor and The Sixth Great Lake and being part of the Elephant 6 collective. So I will admit I am new to Sasha's music and come to it with open ears.
The A-side of the vinyl opens with the title track Love Is Alright a cool indie pop song with very rich layered production that made it sound pretty cool. Candy mountain does re-work Big Rock Candy Mountain totally into something totally original as a big almost brassy song that's really a rather cool bit of Chamber pop song about missing her old band The Essex Green.
Castle Keep opens like it's going to be an epic rock ballad all lighter's in the air, but thankfully it's a lot more subtle than that but with some very 1970's style keyboards like they have tried to re-imagine the keyboard parts from The Who's Tommy into a song that sounds like The Dream Academy might play it, Strangely as odd as that may sound it works.
Icy Hands is a breezy pop song that builds and tells a tale of despair and love that's gone and a loved one who went far too soon. The A-side closes with Sparrow a spare tale of escape and freedom over an almost rock opera backing that is full of regret.
The B Side opens with Heavy Doors that has a cool flute led intro into a song with a quite bucolic feel to it that feels like we are floating away as Sasha remembers her old band mate from Ladybug Transistor the drummer San Fadyl who passed away in 2007, this is a rather intense and moving tribute.
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Molly's Got A Talent and it's more than having rather kissable lips or having a half-head no this is more about stress management but how that manifests itself can only be revealed by listening to this richly layered song that will reveal itself to you.
Lemonade is a good questioning song about someone with a love of dirty magazines and Baby Lemonade that old Syd Barrett classic and of course it's a quite psyched out and psychedelic song.
The album closes with The Library that has a church organ battling with a drone for the slightly disembodied vocals to sing about Sasha's grandmothers love of rare books that calls to mind to me Church Of Anthrax era John Cale meets dystopian folk and for me it's not only my favorite song on the album but at the same time probably the hardest song on the album to listen too a very cool way to end a very interesting and rather original album.
Find out more at https://sashabell.bandcamp.com/ or https://www.facebook.com/sasha.bell.7165
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