ndulge Bel Auburn in a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure quandary: Imagine yourself a member in an indie outfit of mid-twentysomethings who wants to make a record that reaches artistic peaks only a band like Radiohead has scaled. Do you

a.) Throw in the towel and fill out an application at the local Starbucks?
b.) Buy a bigger amp, sport your sister’s slit prom dress and settle for becoming the next “The Darkness”?
c.) Submerge yourself in your parents’ garage, rename the band “The Grungies” and pretend you don’t know how to play your instruments?
d.) Shoot for the stars knowing full well that, while you’re destined to fail, you still might end up with a pretty solid debut on your hands?

Though choosing c is the only sure-fire path to a lucrative record deal in the present musical clime, Bel Auburn, as we hope you’ve guessed, opted for d and, in the resulting album, Cathedrals, they find themselves on terra pretty darn firma.

As debuts go, Bel Auburn impresses with their reluctance to play it close to the vest. These ten songs certainly aren’t stylistically groundbreaking, or even trendsetting, but they are sophisticated, whimsical and, most of all, earnest.

Singer Scott Williams has an endearing voice—at once vulnerable and pining—that soars above the instrumentation on tracks like “The Speed of Thought” and “Sing What You Mean”. The guitar work is densely layered, less concerned with progression than repetition. Wall-of-sound atmospherics dominate here, leaving Williams ample room to improvise. The drumming, though, seems to want to go faster than it can, though this may be more attributable to a paucity of production acumen than a shortcoming of the musicianship.

Like others in the herd of Radiohead-influenced bands (Coldplay, Interpool, Travis, Palo Alto and Remy Zero, to name a few), Bel Auburn shares an affinity for sparkling, emotive vocals against a backdrop of introverted instrumentation. These guys aren’t interested in rocking out. They’re content to sing about their woe and, in the process, woo your girlfriend right out of her panties. And, in this, Bel Auburn is remarkably successful. Cathedrals seeps at the edges with emotion. No doubt for some, this will constitute an unpardonable turnoff, but at what National Indie Convention did earnestness become a no-no, anyway?

“Sing What You Mean” labors past an intro that’s weighted down by heavy-footed drumming, only to abruptly stretch out into a gorgeous chorus, as Williams sings, “Sing what you mean when you notice me / Noticing you”. On “How Not to Get Caught”, Williams’ voice is well-matched with a simple piano accompaniment that builds to something that would not have raised an eyebrow were it included on Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head.

“Glass”, barely a minute of music, showcases Williams’ voice as it slips in between an acoustic guitar and violin. A minute long song usually indicates a studio throwaway spliced into the mix to fill out a slim album, but “Glass” is the exception. Who said something so brief couldn’t be so satisfying? Besides my girlfriend.

“Physics for Poets” rides a flabby guitar riff that is simply too familiar to impress and a couple of the songs here (“Bright” and “Polestar”) are a bit too similar sounding for this reviewer’s palate. However, on “Hands, Away” Bel Auburn pushes the creative envelope furthest. A venerable orchestration of instruments (violin, trumpet, plus the usual suspects) unfurls over an inexplicably gentle industrial beat, forming a delicate, ornate musical tapestry which perfectly evokes the bleakness of midwinter in the Midwest. A gem.

Bel Auburn shows a lot of promise here, but they’ve yet to take the sound they inherited from their favorite band and make it their own. Debuts, however, are more about showing off one’s talent, and Bel Auburn has some to burn. I just hope my girlfriend isn’t listening.