Wild Belle Isles Vinyl LP New

New darlings of the style press, Wild Belle have a battle on their hands to prove themselves a band of substance.
Debut album Isles finds Chicago-based brother and sister team Natalie and Elliot Bergman trying on every scrap of musical clothing strewn around the room in search of a signature look.

And they just about manage it, after a fashion.

The alarming thing is, they settle on reggae. It's unexpected because at a time when everyone's attempting to reinvent (or simply polish up) the indie-rock wheel it's so, well, off-trend.

No harm in that though, and Wild Belle have a way with a deceptively sharp sunshine tune and a surprising line in ground-shuddering dub wobbles, ensuring Isles is more than an exercise in well-meaning parody and never quite an Ace of Base revival.

When everything clicks, Natalie's voice slithers over some pleasing languid grooves, bumping hips with Hawaiian guitars and rude horns on Keep You, and getting chippy with a keen lover on the parping Shine.

She's a soft-edged Amy Winehouse, a sly sister to The Bird and the Bee's Inara George, and as seductive as all that suggests.

Occasionally something else is tried on for size: Twisted mixes African guitars with calypso rhythms to booty-shaking effect.

Just Another Girl sees the sudden arrival of the blues and, oddly, the album's best track as Natalie resigns herself to being "just another one of your experimentations" over a nice hint of rock'n'roll sleaze.

There's versatility at least then, and producer Bill Skibbe gives the record a retro dusting, a saving grace of 60s authenticity.

The risk otherwise is every song could turn into 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday, and no one wants that although It's Too Late sails mighty close.

Thankfully Wild Belle show there's enough about them to avoid the hazards, and Isles ends up an easy pleasure nothing too weighty, but substantial in its way.