By Ken Capobianco
CNC Arts Writer

Betwixt

Need to be challenged? Want to hear something that you haven’t heard before? Looking for a sound that is both seductive and disarming?  Welcome Betwixt into your life.  Frankly, any group with Leah Callahan as its vocalist already has a step up on the competition.

The former lead singer of Turkish Delight, one of the city’s most criminally overlooked outfits, is once again front and center here – and she’s as bewitching as ever.  Callahan jumps octaves, whispers and purrs, wails…well, she does just what the song needs.  And Betwixt’s compositions can be sensual soundscapes or turbulent leaps into the void between dreams and nightmares.

This is not easy-listening music and, at times, the band sounds like they are still working through ideas.  There are some terrific moments on their debut CD, “Moustache” (Archenemy).  But you can’t help believe that if you teamed Callahan, multi-instrumentalist Tom Devaney, drummer Dave Nelson and ace-in-the-hole cellist Gordon Withers with a bigger production budget, they’d deliver the knockout record that they’re on the verge of making.

Call it avante-garage or art-damaged rock.  Whatever.  This is music nobody else in these parts is making these days, and it’s important to have Betwixt around.