***1/2 Bela

'TIL SUMMER ENDS

(Mother West)

Most bands who travel the dark corridors of the soul have had a hard time defining their own space within the castle of artsy gloom rock. Especially those from Manhattan, where Lou and crew's Velvet Underground created an enduring template for such music with their biting guitars and cello and their cynic's-eye view of the demi-monde and the inner life. What sets the East Village-based quartet Bela, whose name and mood draw on both Lugosi and Bartók, apart is the way they put a little more movement in their chord progressions, giving ex-Rasputina cellist Julia Kent a base for more expansive melodies. And there's an undeniably poetic allure to frontman Jeff Hogan's lyrics. But what makes Bela pop is Hogan's brilliant flourish for vocal harmonies. It's right out of the Hollies canon -- if the Hollies were depressives. So heartaches and haunted psyches rarely sound as sweet as in these 14 tunes.

-- Ted Drozdowski