The Beveled Edges, I Guess We’re Not Alone Review

The Beveled Edges: Genre-Fluid Music Across Borders and Emotions

By Sylvannia Garutch

The debut album by The Beveled Edges, I Guess We’re Not Alone, is the sort of work that doesn’t scream its genre-melding modernization; it embodies it. Vocalist Shelly Bhushan and guitarist Anthony Lanni meet not just as collaborators but as carriers of different musical bloodlines. Her soul-rooted songwriting and his Brazilian-jazz classical fluency form the album’s tensile framework while a fluid ensemble of gifted players. The result is a cross-continental suite that finds coherence not in genre, but in intention to express what happens when sound and feeling converge.

The opening track, “Amarillo,” is a study of how different styles can bloom into motion. Bhushan begins with accordion and strings, her tone and emotionally charged melody pulls you into the musical world of The Beveled Edges. The elegance of the flowing melody is accompanied by Lanni’s 7-string guitar and mandolin sculpting a tango-tinged requiem, sorrowful and rich in harmonic perfume. The ensemble builds a song that recalls Latin American bolero traditions, but filtered through a noirish, postmodern lens. It’s the kind of track that blends sounds to entice you.

The title track pivots the mood with lithe, rhythmically buoyant, wrapped in samba’s syncopated grin. Bhushan sings of extraterrestrial curiosity in 1800s Texas with a mix of theatrical glee and cool detachment. Lanni’s baixaria undercurrent is all gently implying and asserting the feel. Vibraphone flickers, and Arei Sekiguchi’s percussion dances in counterpoint, creating that rare balance between narrative whimsy and musical muscle. It’s a tune that would land just as well in a jazz vocalist’s book as on an NPR Tiny Desk set. The melody is excellently composed to tell the tell with intoxicating shapes and intervals.

“I’ll Be There For You” offers another feel with its soulful 6/8 groove, carved with and steady guitar figure, organ warmth and gospel undertones. Bhushan’s phrasing here is all contour, never oversung, always emotionally tethered. Lanni provides a subtle rhythmic lattice, while Brad Whitely’s Hammond organ hums like a spiritual undertow. Sekiguchi, again, adapts like a chameleon, his snare and toms shaping the energy without overstepping. The backing vocals add texture, harmonic color, and key change midway through the song.

“Autumn Fell” a styled gem of the mysterious side of the bossa nova pulse. In this atmosphere and beat, Haruna Fukazawa’s flute becomes both wind and shadow, fluttering around the vocals to add melodic enticement. Lanni’s harmonic choices are exquisite as he leans into dissonances and resolution that evoke Jobim’s voice but veers modern, folding in jazz chord clusters that breathe in and out. It’s chamber-pop intimacy with world-jazz implications.

The cinematic qualities of “At The End Of The Day” are hard to miss. It begins as a Latin bolero but quickly opens into a wider emotional register. Bhushan channels a smoky torch singer with a contemporary edge. Lanni threads together Afro-Caribbean rhythms with lean pop sensibility, a balancing act of grace and focus. The horn section, Delgado on trumpet, Becker on trombone, and Powell on saxophone join the swells of backing vocals to create a kind of sepia-toned grandeur, evoking Burt Bacharach by way of Astor Piazzolla. The track’s vocal harmonies are nostalgic, even as the arrangement leans forward with feel changes and harmonic creativity.

“Paris Isn’t Paris Without You” brings us to Europe with its waltz feeling and French lyrics. Bhushan’s tone is intimate, kissed with reverie. Accordionist Will Holshouser plays with comments of emotional irony, no pastiche, and it works because the sentiment is honest. The driving force is Lanni’s guitar and Bhushan’s vocals, haunt familiar places of Latin jazz with European influences.

“Down The Stairs” is an emotional exorcism; the Italian folk sensibility is rendered in chiaroscuro: Lanni’s guitar, full in its tonal register, descends the harmonic staircase with grim clarity. Sheridan’s piano and Fukazawa’s flute shade the atmosphere like stage lights narrowing to a single focus. Bhushan howls, but not with abandon; her vocals have power and purpose. The song’s structure unfolds like a short film; the two feel changes, and the playing with the three feel is excellent. The chorus builds for the cadence, Bhushan’s vocals striking distinct climaxes before fading into the instrumentation.

“Fade Into The Sky” floats with ballad textures of Sekiguchi’s delicate percussion, Lanni’s suspended chords flowing, and Delgado’s muted trumpet paint with emotion. It’s a melodic story conveyed by lush vocals and harmony that hovers with resonance to elevate the lyrics.

On “Never Too Late,” The Beveled Edges present a class jazz swing with Lanni walking bass lines and comping chords with clever voicings and elastic pulse. Bhushan channels a lineage from Nancy Wilson to Cecile McLorin Salvant, her phrasing expressive and sly. It’s the kind of tune that will light up a live set: equal parts charm and chops. Whitely’s organ lines flirt with blues and the church.

Throughout I Guess We’re Not Alone, it’s clear that Shelly Bhushan is the emotional anchor, her voice supple and assured across moods: playful, bruised, fiery, reflective. Lanni, for his part, is more than a co-writer; he’s an orchestrator of feeling, building frameworks that allow intimacy to flourish. His 7-string technique is never ornamental; it’s architectural, grounding the songs while leaving space for others to breathe. Sekiguchi proves indispensable, adjusting his rhythmic palette from samba to soul without blinking. The supporting cast, Fukazawa, Holshouser, Whitely, Powell, Sheridan, Delgado, and others, function as scene painters, each adding color, contrast, and contour in just the right measure.

What makes this album enjoyable is its genre defiance and emotional clarity. I Guess We’re Not Alone is shaped with songs of care and honesty; no need to fit a format. They need only to mean something. And in the hands of The Beveled Edges, they do.