The Belle Game’s debut album, ‘Ritual Tradition Habit’, begins with bashful guitars, a soft wave of cymbals, and a pair of ambiguous phrases. ‘Ritual’, a sweetly haunting soundscape, lasts only a few moments before fleshing out a procession of wild and witchy tunes, full of melancholy, mythology and symphonic power.

Led by the hypnotic vocals of Andrea Lo, The Belle Game take intricate guitar and keyboard lines, anchored by dark pop rhythms, and weave them into gorgeous, graceful melodies… the end result still retaining the rawness of a boozy confessional.
Vancouver alt-weekly The Georgia Straight describes their music as “…a mix of pastoral pop and percussion-bombed art rock.”

‘Ritual Tradition Habit’ was recorded by John Raham (The Be Good Tanya’s, Frazey Ford) and is available on October 9, 2012 on Vancouver’s Boompa Records.
It’s a journey through 12 beautifully layered tracks, interrupted by the occasional chant, hymn and instrumental rumbling. Among them the spooky blues ballad, ‘River’, a song about shedding the past, which builds into Lo’s heartfelt salvo: “There’s a place that I found / Full of sins that you’ve drowned / I’ll be your river/ I’ve been your river since we were kids.”

Over the last two years, the band has been quietly gathering acclaim across Canada, starting with winning Vancouver radio station Shore 104.3 Song Search “Fan Favourite” Award for the tune “Tiny Fires” off their 2009 debut EP, Inventing Letters.

2011 saw the release of their Sleep To Grow EP, and a subsequent Western Canada tour with friends, Hey Ocean. They followed this up by playing coveted opening slots for international pop sensation Gotye, Polaris Music Prize winners Karkwa and much-loved Vancouverites, Said The Whale.

This past summer, the band climbed aboard Tracks on Tracks, a Festival Express-like, cross-Canada train tour. Along for the ride was CBC Radio 3 host Grant Lawrence, who called The Belle Game’s electric performance, in a packed and sweaty train car as it swayed through the North Ontario wilderness, “a career defining set.”

And, most recently, while watching the Belle Game perform at a local Vancouver show, a die-hard metal fan turned to a friend of the band and said, “I like this music… what is it?”

The Belle Game is Andrea Lo, Adam Nanji, Katrina Jones, Alex Andrew and Rob Chursinoff.