Sound Check — Geoff Carter: Mama Zeus disc sets room on ‘Fire’

Friday, Dec. 29, 2000 | 10:20 a.m.

Geoff Carter's music column runs Fridays in the Sun. Reach him at geoff.carter@vegas.com.

Stanley Kubrick filmed most of "Barry Lyndon" by candlelight. He worked with the Zeiss camera company to create special lenses that could capture the nuances of candlelight -- the flickering, gold wash of illumination that seems to make surfaces ripple. Take the coldest, florescent-lit room and light it with candles; it becomes a place to drink wine, relax or invoke romance.

Kubrick used candles to enhance the truth of his art -- in the 18th century world of "Barry Lyndon," you used candles or sat in a dark room.

Las Vegas' Mama Zeus practices, records and even plays live with candles burning, for reasons wholly similar to Kubrick's: the only way the band could make its sensual, 1970s-vintage rock 'n' roll is by candlelight. You could try to tell the band about low-wattage bulbs, diffusers and the like, but it wouldn't matter -- Mama Zeus takes pride in its anachronism. Electricity is for amplifiers, and false light is for suckers.

"Blue Soul Fire," the group's latest record, has real light streaming from its nine tracks. Much of it comes from vocalist Nicole Sottile, one of the most dynamic performers the local music scene has known. She's a stunning beauty with real rock-star presence and a control over her instrument seldom heard within city limits. Her whisper-to-a-shout performances on "Somehow," "Over and Over" and "Promise" only hint at her live chops. It's little wonder she's Mama Zeus' anchor.

However, Sottile never tries to run the show. She's in perfect harmony -- literal and metaphorical -- with the rest of the band: guitarists Charlie Vantine and Bill McCleary, bassist Tony Breit and drummer/keyboardist Vinny Castaldo. The band generates a burn that Sottile is challenged to match. The scratchy guitars of "Oceanside" are practically a second vocal, and in "We're Alive," Castaldo and Breit faithfully recreate an O'Jays/Isaac Hayes rhythm track. You have to play confidence to mine these influences, and more confidence still to honor them the way Mama Zeus does.

I called Mama Zeus' debut, "Inside #21," a raw diamond. It was a fine effort, but paled against the band's live show. By comparison, "Blue Soul Fire" is shiny and neatly cut -- it echoes the live show with near-perfect fidelity. The only thing I can say against the record is that it's too short: at just 33 minutes, you'll need to listen to it at least twice. But that's the band's affinity for the 1970s at work; before targeted marketing, albums were as long as they needed to be. Filler -- or deliberate filler, at least -- didn't exist.

Mama Zeus has much to be proud of in "Blue Soul Fire." If it were a Kubrick film, even the relentless perfectionist would have matter-of-factly averred to it as one of his best. It's a real shame the filmmaker died before he could hear what a candle sounds like. If you've never bought a record by a local band before, start with this one.