BeThisBell is an American alternative rock band with punk, garage and psychedelic roots. Founded by vocalist, guitarist, songwriter BeTh isBell (the band’s namesake), bassist Cody Fowler (Horse Thief), and guitarist Justin Hays in 2013 in Oklahoma City, OK, while all three were attending the Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma (ACM@UCO) - under the tutelage of OKC-based alternative rock band and headliner The Flaming Lips, whose manager Scott Booker is the Dean of the music college, which focuses on contemporary rock and country music performance/production. The band, with the assistance of ACM lead guitarist Blaise Thompson and guest drummer Nic Ley (from the band colourmusic, and who is now a touring member of The Flaming Lips), recorded and released their first full-length album We Are The Gods! in 2014 to critical acclaim and industry praise. The title cut of the album landed the band a publishing deal with EMI and a derivative co-write with artist David Bowie, as the bridge of the song borrows some lyrics from his song Space Oddity, and a publishing contract for the entire album with EMI subsidiary TRO Workshop Productions. The album became popular in the college radio market which resulted in the band being selected to play at the 2015 College Music Journal (CMJ) Music Festival in NYC and an East coast tour to NYC and back.

The same lineup of the band also recorded the band’s follow-up EP Work It Out, released in 2015. Both the album and EP were recorded at Bell Labs In Norman, OK, with recording engineer and producer Trent Bell (Chainsaw Kittens), as is the band’s new full-length album Red scheduled for release in Summer/Fall of 2024.  The new album Red features one song, Mother Says, with the original line-up (isBell, Fowler, Hays, Thompson and guest drummer Ley) from the original WATG! sessions and seven tunes featuring the band’s only permanent members Isbell and Fowler, with the assistance of drummer Ty Clark from Tulsa, OK, and lead guitarists Ray Triana (graduate of Humboldt State Univ. College of Music) and the amazingly talented multi-instrumentalist (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards) Spencer Kennedy, who both add some intricate, even jazzy, psychedelic lead guitar lines to isBell’s driving alt-rock tunes. In addition, isBell contributes her own soulful lead guitar lines on many of the songs, as she did on the band’s earlier album and EP.  The final mixing and mastering for the Red Album was done by Dominic Romano at Bongo Boy Studios in McKinleyville, CA. The band is looking for a label and management.

The band is best-known for the sometimes outrageous lyrics, costumes, and antics of its transgender (MTF) front-person BeTh isBell. Her very first album (before her gender transition) titled The Good Woman Waltz was a country/Americana album recorded with some of Nashville’s finest studio musicians (literally). Released in 2005, that album’s title cut reached the #1 country position in a statewide chart for Texas songwriters in Summer 2006 testifying to isBell’s strong songwriting skills. isBell honed her songwriting prowess while sitting around campfires trading songs and at songwriting camps sponsored and organized by the Kerrville Folk Festival, and from her training at ACM@UCO from which she has an Associate’s degree in contemporary music performance and a bachelor’s degree in sound technology.
 
In addition to The Lips, the band’s sound is heavily influenced by early psych-punk alternative rock bands The Velvet Underground, The Pixies, New York Dolls, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop.  Although isBell is now female, having gone through gender-reassignment surgery in 2008, her voice still sounds male and has a sound evoking vocal comparisons to front-persons for Nine Inch Nails, Ghost and Pierce The Veil.  The band’s punk-heavy and psychedelic infused alternative rock sound is at lighter times similar to Seattle’s Band of Horses, but at others has a much heavier edge reminiscent of Big Head Todd & The Monsters or Neil Young & Crazy Horse, or the modern neo-psychedelic bands Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Ty Segall or Boogarins.

The band’s new Red Album features the album’s first single “Kief” which has been in regular rotation on Northern California coastal radio stations, including KSLG and KHUM. A driving psych-punk tune about a legendary Humboldt County party hosted by surf-punk band The Mother Vines (LA), the song’s refrain “who’s been smoking all my kief?” is catchy and memorable, and particularly poignant here in Humboldt County, which is known as part of Northern California’s emerald triangle for growing the world’s best and most potent marijuana. Young HSU guitar phenom Ray Triana lays down an intricate, jazzy, psychedelic, lead guitar over isBell and Fowler’s driving punk-infused riff which makes the song quite catchy/compelling to listeners. The band’s next album The Sun King also features OKC-based pianist/keyboardist Holly Murphy on the song Sun King and the album’s jazz-influenced song Monsters.

The band’s albums can be found online at https://BeThisBell.bandcamp.com along with BeTh’s recordings as a solo artist and with some of her other bands: Big Mama Acid & The Cosmic Argonauts (featuring Ray Triana on lead guitar), modern rock band ?Question Everything? a duo project with guitarist Chandler Nelson (Eureka, CA), even a jazz poetry improv album with pianist Holly Murphy (aka Holly Wood). The band’s albums can also be found on iTunes, Spotify, and other music retailers. The band’s FB page has 800 fans: https://www.facebook.com/BeThisBellBand

BeThisBell – Shine On! EP REMASTERED (EP Review)
OFFICIALLY RELEASED ON JANUARY 8, 2025

By Grace Bradford, Music Review World (Jan. 13, 2025)

A regular on this platform, BeThisBell, returns once again with a wonderful addition to their artistry. If you’re late to the party, BeThisBell is an American alternative band that’s well-known for their authenticity, ferocity and penchant for composing music that breaks the monotonous nature of music that’s typically associated with the ‘alternative rock’ umbrella these days. If you would like to know more about their detailed history and the inner workings that make up this current outfit, feel free to click here.

In today’s review, we will explore the addition to the current grind of BeThisBell’s releases with a release titled ‘Shine On! REMASTERED’. It is a 6-song EP, with songs that have a slightly different tone to albums like ‘The Red Album’. It is filled with family-friendly tracks, described by the main vocalist BeTh IsBell as songs that have hopeful and uplifting messages. This is a deviation from the typical jazz-laden affair and strong message that characterizes the band itself, and it is very intriguing to experience a different side of their artistry. Do they have what it takes to appeal to this particular market? I think so, and I hope that by the end of this review you think so too.

Within the first few seconds of this album, it is pretty apparent which direction this release goes in. It definitely has a much more subtle, emotionally deeper and vulnerable tone, but it actually does not lack any of the intensity you’d typically expect from BeThisBell. It contains songs that have a bluesy undertone emanating within the layers of multiple melodic tracks, and even through the bass pattern and the main vocalist’s delivery. It has an extremely dynamic tone in terms of storytelling, taking you through an episodic journey as you listen to the track- it is not monotone at all. It has an edge within the choruses of its songs, just slightly more dampened and mastered to elevate the deeper tones of the songs instead of letting the harsher tones overtake the release.

I find the mastering of the main vocalist quite significant within all of these songs, I feel like it really accentuates the forthrightness within the vocalist’s vocal tone. It’s almost as if it has a slight vintage filter over it. Another interesting factor about this release is the true detail applied to the mastering techniques within these songs, as they contain all kinds of eccentric and necessary tricks to turn the listening experience into a three-dimensional one, such as applying slight delay and gate to the guitars.
One thing that also truly sticks out is how well the electric and non-electric stems of each guitar melody merge very well in each track, without one overpowering the other. A lot of intricate work has evidently been done to balance each segment, giving the EP a very balanced feel at the same time. I think this also goes along with the ‘family-friendly’ theme associated with this particular release. Even though other interpretations of this album have bared comparisons to existing artists, I feel like this EP honestly is too unique to be compared to other acts. Yes, other alternative rock acts try this approach to music with a mellower, emotionally potent approach, but I just think BeThisBell’s level of musical variability and detail supersedes the need to compare it to any other acts.
This would also serve as a good introduction to the band if you’re not intrinsically tuned to more grunge, punk-esque acts. All in all, a great release that maintains harmony without skimping on emotional intensity and musical variability.

SCORE/Excellent: Once again, BeThisBell comes up with a release that is extremely proficient and satisfies a central aim, in this case, emotional intensity and a different approach to their typical repertoire of rock music. You will be left listening to ‘Shine On! Remastered’ with a poignant appreciation for BeThisBell.

Review by Kev Moore - Witch Cross (UK):
Beth Isbell
Shine On!

This 6 track ep is a revelation.It’s got more hooks than an overstocked fishing shack.

There’s an understated laconic delivery to the opening track ‘Work it Out’ - interspersed with some tasteful bluesy guitar. The song has a hypnotic revolving chord structure that draws you in. It’s electric, with just the right underpinning of acoustic to fill things out. I like the contrast between the one note outro solo and the more florid guitar fills that pepper the track.

Then we have ‘We Are The Gods!’ Which is hugely reminiscent of Blue Oyster Cult and would sit comfortably within ‘Agents of Fortune’ It’s a great song that actually doesn’t need the Space Oddity section - it can more than stand on its own. A nice scorching slide solo over a different riff takes it elsewhere. It’s a quite majestic track.

Next up, the title track. The chorus is steeped in British new wave but its plunged into balls out rock with a Wah Wah solo that is pure 70’s - in a good way.

‘In This Moment ’ is a shuffle of sorts - like Black Velvet on acid - Beth’s vocal is full of anguish in the verse and then soars in the self affirmation of the chorus, backed with the ‘love love love’ descending refrain - hooky as hell. Lovely blues licks coil around the track, lifting it.

‘Love Sublime’. Lots of space in this track - Bowiesque, and maybe a little Roxy too. But just when you think you have a handle on it, it gets funky .. it’s constantly moving and once again the guitar - a feature of this ep - lifts the song a little higher. The drums enjoy switching fills on the chorus.

‘Love Tonight’ instantly creates an atmosphere- and you’re in the movie - the ghost of Lou Reed lives here. A hypnotic electric piano and an interestingly sparse drum pattern is augmented by a buzz saw cello and then suddenly it’s stripped back again.

After one spin, you’ll be singing these songs, and surely that’s what it’s all about. 
-Kev Moore (Witch Cross)

BeThisBell – BeThisBell REMASTERED (Album Review)
OFFICIALLY RELEASED ON JANUARY 1, 2025

By Grace Bradford for Music Review World (Jan. 9, 2025)
https://musicreviewworld.com/bethisbell-bethisbell-remastered-album-review/

With their typical brand of authenticity, brashness and unfiltered intensity familiar to this platform, BeThisBell returns with a fiery new release. We have covered numerous releases from them, which you can read here to allow yourself to gain some context and background information about the band itself. From original releases to cover work, any release from BeThisBell can be anticipated with the utmost furor, as they do not hold back with their style of music.

It pans out within the subgenre of rock, paying homage to early grunge-like roots with how ruthless some of their songs can be, to a more sophisti-rock approach associated with people like David Bowie. Sometimes, their releases are accented with the complexity and novelty of jazz, leading to a powerful combination of genres that in isolate, already rocks people’s hearts.

BeThisBell REMASTERED is technically a compilation album, filled with newly remastered cuts out of existing BeThisBell records such as ‘We Are The Gods!’, ‘Work It Out’, ‘The RED Album’ as well as radio-friendly edits of some of these songs. The album also consists of a bonus interview with BeTh IsBell, which would definitely delight fans of the artist itself, being almost 29 minutes long.

As expected, all of these tracks have near to perfect mastering, helping to elevate each element in the track extremely harmoniously, even if the tone of the tracks are more chaotic than harmonious. They’re filled with immense energy, and a very potent intent, making it entirely authentic and brash. One thing that constantly comes to my mind when I listen to BeThisBell is the apparent parallels between early grunge acts, in terms of the way they present their music.

It’s entirely uncensored, even if its through a radio cut. Listening to this album is like visiting a rock time capsule without any regard for the present, and I think that’s amazing. Rock these days tend to be washed out and pretty fake, and I don’t get any such feeling listening to this record at all.

If you’re already familiar with BeThisBell, this is what you’re used to but simply elevated- there’s soul infused within the tracks and a lot of underlying melodic complexity as well. If this is your introduction to BeThisBell, be prepared to teleport into a world that completely soaks you in through its music.

The vocalist’s ferocity and the guitarists’ penchant for solos with a high level of musical variability will keep you on the edge of your seat, making you simply beg for more. It also seems like the whole range of human emotions get to have its supporting role within these tracks, leaving you with a body of work that can definitely resonate with you at some point. In some ways, this is truly a sign of universal musicality.

SCORE/Excellent: BeThisBell returns with their consistent record through a compilation album titled ‘BeThisBell’ REMASTERED. It contains all of the excellent points of their recent artistry, leaving you with a body of work that is full of passion, intensity and even soul at some points. This is an album that’ll definitely soak you in for a while.