The Daily Spin II

Bel | Read The Room

Welcome back to the Daily Spin. For the uninitiated, this is the series in which I review an album every day of 2025.

As was the case two years ago, my favorite song from each album can be found at the playlist linked here.

Album: Read The Room (2023)

Artist: Bel

Link:

I’m already stressed between packing for a trip and Pepperdine basketball’s completely unexpected and deeply insane run to the conference tournament semifinals. I was needing an album that was chill but not enough to put me to sleep, but nothing to keep the heart pumping - and Bel delivered just that.

Reminiscent of indie from the early 2000s, Read The Room follows some base template work and uses it well - but uses those few motifs quite a bit, as the album, short as it is, falls rather quickly into dull repetition.

I think an album like this falls easily into the trap that is security - there’s obvious potential here, and the glimmers we get outside of routine promise something really special, but they wind up few and far between in the aggregate, diminishing the final product to a point it feels watered down.

Rating: 5/10

Best Tracks: Are You Okay?

Worst Tracks: Woman on Fire