Beat the Devil

Beat the Devil’s Shilpa Ray is a petite powerhouse, roaring and moaning about love, horror and Solomon Grundy in a raw, bluesy alto while pumping atmospheric chords on a harmonium. --The New York Times
Shilpa Ray—let's call her what she is, New York City's best frontperson—has added theremin to her harmonium playing, and her vocals remain a killing weapon, a portal to generations of blues singers howling from beyond the grave. -- Time Out NY
Beat the Devil is an experience, and from the very first song of their set I was enthralled. The band produced a dark ragtime-punk sound along the lines of a mixture of the spirit of Man Man, a New Orleans funeral procession, Tom Waits, and Billie Holiday. They're the kind of band that defines what I wish current Lower East Side bands would have the courage to sound like. Not that they could, however, because lead singer Shilpa Ray's voice is one in a million and the LES has lost pretty much all of its growl. If you long for sultry dark dirgey folk rock that climbs into your mind and never lets go ("wow wow, a WOW WOW"), then this is the band you've been waiting for. --EARFARM
Listening to Beat the Devil is like taking your first punch in the face. --Spin.com
It’s time for Beat the Devil to leave behind their current nine-to-five crutches and drive the van, “‘til the wheels come off.” The beneficiary will be the unaware concertgoer, hearing Shilpa Ray pump her harmonium, listening to her sing in surprisingly unsnarled timbre for most of “Raging Bull Blues” about bloody noses and torn skin, only for her to suddenly shred her vocal chords in the song’s latter half; the way she’ll sing those nonsense pop syllables—“ba dada dat dada dada dat da!”—all throaty rasp and venomous bite, they might think she’s crazy. So what’s wrong with crazy? --NYPress
A new voice emerges from New York City and the world stands back agog at its unique gravity. The sound belongs to Shilpa Ray and even though her band Beat The Devil employs no lead guitars (in a sassy kick to the groin to those who thought Keane had cornered that particular market) they ensure that a couple of minutes in their company will leave you in a smiling dishevelled heap. --MP3hugger.com
The act's 'wow' factor comes from vocalist Shilpa Ray. Her voice is almost otherworldly, a passioned growl you can hardly believe is coming from the petite femme on stage. --Cable & Tweed
As the last notes faded I stood thoroughly bewildered as Shubaly picked up his bass and Ray dropped the shovel/pliers combo in favor of a harmonium – think accordion but freestanding and not lame – and launched into one of the most devastatingly raucous sets of recent memory. King was out of this world and out of control playing at a nearly inhuman pace – at times seeming to hit every piece of his drum kit at once – while Shipla’s vocal zigzagged from smoky and sultry to jagged and incendiary. A modern day Siouxsie Sioux, she could in one moment sing in a deep and smooth plaintive wail and in the next let loose with a completely unreal scream full of grit and sweat and the kind of sex it takes days – and possibly medication – to recover from. With an explosive delivery and wicked rhythms fitting seamlessly with rough, serrated time changes, this reviewer loved every minute of it. --newyorkcool.com
Beat the Devil brings no guitar to the table, but who needs it when they have lead singer Shilpa Ray’s howl o’ pain, sharp-tongued verses and otherworldly harmonium, painted with Mishka Shubaly’s low-end sludge? If this is the voice of Satan, we’ll see you in hell, suckers!-- Time Out NY
Another mesmerizing set - In a scene filled with indie rock pretenders, Beat the Devil stand alone with a unique genre defying sonic style that just might push them to the head of the pack in ’07. --Fiddlewhileyouburn.com
LES trio Beat the Devil combine the foreboding, eerie sounds of the harmonium with the lilting and often menacing vocals of snarling lead singer Shilpa Ray-- Flavorpill.com
Tonight, at Knitting Factory, is Beat the Devil, a band that had the good sense to name themselves after a movie that John Huston and Truman Capote wrote, drunk, as they were shooting it. They do some purposefully sludgy dirge-pop stuff which mostly exists to give adequate support to fearsome lead singer Shilpa Ray, a throaty, snarling belter like a homeless Gypsy Rose Lee or something. (Plus, if you deconstruct her scarily modulated primal scream, she appears to be saying something like "Where there are dancing bears/Drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid/Touching large-breasted women/Touching large-breasted men/Oh I'm in love with myself." Also she plays the harmonium.) Apparently they're pretty impressive live, too, a grippingly gloomy carnival barker snarl-- L Magazine.
Best Lead Singer Who Doubles As An Air Raid Siren - Shilpa Ray
You wanna get there right as a Beat-the-Devil set begins, because half the fun in seeing this volatile NYC jazz-folk-blues-punk outfit lies in watching the unfamiliar react the first time lead singer Shilpa Ray opens her mouth. Typical reaction: shock and awe. She looks tiny and jovial (especially surrounded by her menacing, dudely bandmates), but goddamn can she ever shriek, alternating jazzy, evocative moans (she's inspired Billie Holiday comparisons, and for once they don't sound totally ridiculous) with a nuclear-grade, paint-evaporating, continent-shifting howl loaded with more volume, rage, and pathos than the entire Ozzfest lineup combined. After she fiercely blasts through her song about Coney Island, you'll never look at chili dogs or Ferris wheels the same way again. That Ray is nonchalantly playing a harmonium (a hand-pumped organ of the bagpipean persuasion) the whole time only adds to the terrifying visual appeal. It's not always clear exactly what her surrealist lyrics mean ("Where there are dancing bears/Drinking grape-flavored Kool-Aid/Touching large-breasted women/Touching large-breasted men/Oh I'm in love with myself"), but there's no doubt she means it, and means to let you—and everyone in the next county over too—know about it. (Village Voice)
NYC's Beat the Devil is a bit harder to classify, but no less intriguing. They seem capable of about anything, and all of it is good: definitely worth the trip. - The Athens News

Among the cacophony of cookie-cutter rock bands, Beat the Devil emerges as a uniquely soulful addition to the Lower East Side of the 21st century. - AM New York

Beat The Devil is a live thing. The drummer taps away in back, lanky and weird with a slight twitch. Drunken, brooding basslines played by Mishka Shubaly loom like an elephant as it staggers down the street to the bar. All is centered around the harmonium, a bellowed instrument that sounds of the ocean, sitting tabletop, center stage, like the magician's black hat. Front woman Shilpa Ray wields the wooden box with a spider-like grace, pumping out chords of sorrow that fill the room with a dark, eerie beauty. But perhaps the real magic is in her voice. Ray's ability to project uninhibited emotion using her deep alto moan gives the band a haunting grip. From a melancholic howl to a powerful snarl, she brings to life the St. Augustine's of old and the 40 oz. dry heaves of right now. The show gains momentum, and suddenly the beat explodes across the toms, the bass crunches with distortion, and Ray bursts out a soulful growl. Possessed by some invisible presence in the room, she winds in and out of spasms and convulsions. Beat the Devil is a shovel, casting away all the dirt and repression to reveal those lovely, awful things festering away in your soul. --Urban Folk

Beat the Devil mix Billie Holiday-era jazz and blues and old black spirituals with folk and garage rock to come off sounding something like CocoRosie on crystal meth wrestling with Belle and Sebastian and the White Stripes...there are some truly amazing moments. -The Village Voice