The Soul Cellar is always a great venue for live music and October 15th was no different. The night’s musical offerings started with a brilliant performance from Rhythm Propelled Grenades (see last month’s EDGE for a full interview with them), swiftly followed by this month’s featured local act Beatitudes.
The band came onto the stage, looking pretty smart with suits on and some rather gorgeous Fender Telecasters in hand. I was unsure what to expect, their look and set up (two guitars, one bass, drums and four – yes four – microphones) didn’t really give much of a clue about the band and their sound. Thankfully, they let their songs do the talking.
Their set was very entertaining, they performed all original material, which was refreshing from a smaller band, and their songs had all the right catches. Songs such as Come Around displayed the vocal prowess of almost the whole band, with a catchy indie sound and a nice little Rock ’n’ Roll edge to it.
Beatitudes’ sound would probably be categorised as Indie or Alternative Rock, but there was definitely an underlying current of Rock ‘n’ Roll in their music which really helps to differentiate them from within a sea of indie copy-cats. However the diversity within their own sound wasn’t huge.
Their performance was good, it was energetic and really engaging, particularly lead vocalist Liam was oozing confidence that really made the band a joy to watch. They did have their down sides, the harmonies were sometimes off and the sound levels weren’t always great – you couldn’t hear their second guitarist for the first half of the gig – but overall it was a great night and Beatitudes are a local act that are well worth looking out for.
8/10
