Listening to Bel Air’s Pole to Pole is like hearing two good EPs squashed into one. The band’s founding three members are Allie Langerak, Jeffrey Mensch and Wyatt Tuzo. Mensch and Langerak each wrote songs separately and then recorded in the studio before ever hitting the stage. The end result is a diverse blend of Americana/ Alt-Country.
While Langerak’s tunes are carried by her vocals, Mench’s songs have more instrumentation to surround his voice and lyrics. That’s a compliment. When you hear a voice as genuine and striking as Langerak’s, you don’t want to risk washing over it. She’s absolutely fantastic on “Looking Up” and “Sometimes” and her voice leaps out of the speakers, much like Jill Andrews of The Everybodyfields.
Mensch’s sound is a bit more country and on tunes like “This City, pt 2″ and “Used To Believe,” he puts his quirky touches on the alt-country genre. They are wonderfully written and executed, particularly “This City, pt 2″ which stuck in my head all day after my first listen.
Pole to Pole is an excellent debut by a band that’s fighting the good fight on their own. Judging by the press and blog talk, I’d say they are winning. The only complaint I have is that there is a lack of interplay between the two vocalists on the same songs. Maybe we’ll see more dueling vocal collaboration on follow-up albums.
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