The Rapture
Echoes

THE REVIEW

How to fool an incurable skeptic...

I read about this "Echoes" by The Rapture (a name taken from the title of a famous proto-rap track by Blondie) in all the magazines in solemn and misleading reviews in "next big thing" style. It seems that the master tape remained in a drawer for a year, waiting for the best offer. Mercury snatched it up, which, with great fanfare, presented the band as the highlight of last month. Given the premises, I'm a bit skeptical.

I put the CD in the player. Initial shock: Mattie Safer, the vocalist, has a voice similar to Robert Smith's, oh dear, it's a PLAGIARISM! Yes, I said it, the usual scam…

I move on to the second track, and the irritation for the vocal similarity already passes, Heaven is a wonderful track, and the music takes over. It is followed by the delicate Open Up Your Heart, where the slightly weak, off-key, and tremulous singing makes this piece intriguing, fascinating, definitely spleen, like Television. We're in the new wave or thereabouts territory, then. Now I'm fascinated.

Extraordinary echoes (it's fitting to say, given the album title) of P.I.L (Public Image Limited) in the brutal and engaging I Need Your Love, The Coming Of Spring, and even more so in the title track, which attacks with biting wild percussion in full swing. And what about the acidic House Of Jealous Lovers? Pure quintessence of a legend like Gang Of Four. Extraordinary.

And then, here and there, other echoes of electronic and techno, the modern touch to update. Listen to Sister Saviour (beautiful) which pumps like a nu-funk track by Talking Heads, but would also fit perfectly at a rave.

Guys, I'm won over! This is an album with great character. Sly, seductive, nervous, and adrenaline-pumping. A worthy successor to last year's galactic bomb that was "Turn on the Bright Lights" by Interpol.
Recommended for those who didn't survive the eighties...