Bellefire - After The Rain (2001)

Bellefire were an Irish girl group, best known for their 2002 cover of the U2 song 'All I Want Is You', and the original line-up of Kelly Kilfeather, Tara Lee, Cathy Newell and Ciara Newell formed in 1999, as the result of an audition organised by Louis Walsh and John Reynolds, the management team behind Boyzone. Walsh and Reynolds' goal was to form a male/female mixed group, but Walsh was disappointed with the standard of the male entrants and opted to sign a girl group instead, with the intention of aiming towards "a more mature niche in the pop market" than what was becoming the norm for vocal groups at the time. The line-up was chosen with the inclusion of fifth member Paula O'Neill, and they performed for the first time under the name Chit Chat as a support act to Boyzone's Point Depot concerts in January 2000, after which O'Neill left the group. The four remaining members went on to sign a recording contract with Virgin Records as Bellefire, and after recording their debut album 'After The Rain', they released two singles, both of which were top twenty hits in the UK, with 'Perfect Bliss' reaching No.2 in the Irish charts and going double platinum in their home country. The single also started to pick up high levels of airplay in Japan, so the girls delayed release of the album in the UK to concentrate on the Japanese market, and when 'Perfect Bliss' reached No.1 in the Japanese international music charts, the band toured Asia for three months, and then released the album especially for the Japanese market. They collaborated with Japanese artist Hitomi Yaida, re-writing English lyrics for his hit song 'Buzzstyle', which they also recorded in their own harmonised sound on the album. 

Their second single 'All I Want Is You' was released in the UK almost a year after their first, and although it received a lot of airplay, and got them an appearance on Top of the Pops, their record company Virgin unexpectedly dropped them, and the European version of their album was never released. Changes at Virgin had meant that new management at the label, who had not worked with the band before, had decided that Bellefire and many other artists on their rosta had to be dropped, and a disillusioned Tara Lee left to become a fashion student, while the other three girls continued as a three-piece. The UK version of their debut album was shelved, and has never been made available to the public, but the band did eventually sign to WEA in 2003, and they moved their base to London, where they subsequently recorded a new album entitled 'Spin The Wheel' in 2004. However, they experienced exactly the same issues with that record, as despite their first single as a trio, 'Say Something Anyway', peaking in the UK at No.26, and at No. 2 in Ireland, the planned follow-up single 'You Were Meant For Me', was shelved, and the release of the album was continually being pushed back. This led the girls to once again concentrate on the Asian market, where 'Say Something Anyway' was reaching the top of the charts in countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and The Philippines, and so after completing a tour of Southeast Asia, they released their album there, and the UK release of 'Spin The Wheel', and a proposed third single, were cancelled. After the non-release of 'Spin The Wheel' in the UK, Bellefire and Atlantic Records parted company, and the group went their separate ways. 'After The Rain' is a perfectly good girl-group record, and the fact that their singles were hits should have boded well for the success of the album, but it wasn't to be, and so if you want to hear what we missed out on then here is that debut, which we in the UK and US were not allowed to hear.  

Track listing

01 Perfect Bliss
02 I Wish I Could But I Can't
03 Anywhere, Anytime
04 Buzzstyle (Find My Way)
05 Surrender
06 Get You Out Of My Mind
07 I Can't Make You Fall In Love Again
08 All The Money In The World
09 Don't Let Me Down  
10 The Flame
11 If Living Is Without You
12 Each Step That I Take
13 Tell Me Now
14 All I Want Is You