No Signal [CD]

Pappas talent is so far-reaching it's nothing short of staggering. The writing and instrumentation are always expertly done and the singing makes most contemporary artists look like amateurs.  - Peter Jesperson (Twin-Tone founder)

The brilliance of the songs on Elle Belle's No Signal is that each one is evocative of a multitude of 80's and 90's artists from Prince to Bruce Springsteen without ever succumbing to nostalgia in any way shape or form. Rather, by creating a breakup album about the disintegration of his relationship with America and its politics, songwriter Christopher Pappas has done something entirely new. Elle Belle has given us a collection of American anthems as beautiful as anything on Thunder Road, but with melodies and lyrics that are completely fresh and exciting. 

After the election I was pretty depressed recalls Pappas. Like most sane people, the 2016 election left him shellshocked. He spent that winter in NH, where he grew up, going over what went wrong. I started writing during that time and what came out felt like a break up song. That first song, which later became the titular track No Signal, acts as the thesis for the record and paints a dreary picture of two people growing apart: You and I on hard times / all around a slow divide / and there's no signal. The result is an album with a story that at times can feel cinematic - even the cover art - an incredibly close-up photo of a man (not Pappas) with nothing but a static T.V. in the background pangs of loneliness and looks like a still from a movie. I wouldn't call it a concept record, as that idea has particular baggage, but the songs do share a singular vision and narrative.

Isolation. A great divide. No signal in, no signal out.

No signal is a vibrant and evocative portrait of a bleak American landscape by one of the best undiscovered composers of our time.