ECHO STREET

Amplifier

Psychedelic/Space Rock

3.81 | 219 ratings

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ergaster

3.5/5

Amplifier is a band I have always found mildly frustrating, because their intricate space-prog sound is one that I feel I should like...but I seem to have difficulty doing so. I tended to love a few selected tracks over their discography, but could never manage to get through entire albums. Indeed, with the exception of about three tracks, I find The Octopus pretty much unlistenable.

Echo Street turned out to be a pleasant surprise; it is much more to my taste than earlier albums. Perhaps the addition of the two former Oceansize guys on bass and guitar has influenced this, but I find the new album more purely song-driven than earlier albums, beautifully melodic with a great mix of acoustic guitar and nicely dense and heavy electric. The epic track "Extra Vehicular" kicks major ass. The outstanding feature for me though, besides the beautifully structured songs, is the vocal work: Sel Balamir has a lovely, soothing voice, and the harmonies in "Between Today and Yesterday" are outstanding. Echo Street is probably my Number 1 singalong album.

Alas for all its qualities, the album simply did not have staying power. I played it a ton when I first got it, it really hooked me, but after a couple of months of heavy rotation, the interest in it wore off. As well, the last two tracks are not as strong as the rest and the album does peter out with rather a whimper. I still like it better than any of the other Amplifier efforts, but it is not an album I will return to very often, and then only to play a few selected tracks. So I guess Amplifier continues to be a band I find mildly frustrating?.

ergaster | 3/5 | 2014-1-19

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