Echo Street
Echo Street gives Amplifier's guitar music more room to breathe. The album favours gradual builds, spacious production and vocal harmonies, allowing the quieter parts to become attractions in their own right. The result can be absorbing, although several pieces spend longer preparing a change than delivering something equally distinctive when it arrives.
Matmos makes a strong introduction. Keyboards and clean guitar create a patient opening before the arrangement grows into a much larger performance. The build takes time, but the eventual force gives that waiting a clear musical purpose. It is one of the record's most convincing combinations of restraint and release.
The Wheel is more enclosed and insistent. Bass, organ and guitar repeat around the vocal, creating a tense rhythm rather than an easy chorus. The heavier ending adds energy, although the returning material can also make the track feel as though it is circling rather than developing.
Extra Vehicular operates on a larger scale. The drums and guitars move towards several forceful peaks, showing how much weight the band can generate from a slow beginning. Some instrumental detail feels too far back in the mix, reducing the impact of passages that could have stood out more clearly.
Where the River Goes takes a simpler route. The instruments gradually join together until the song reaches a fuller ending, making the melody and the build work in the same direction. Between Today And Yesterday offers an acoustic change of setting, with blended voices carrying much of its appeal.
The title track is another effective quieter passage. Gentle bass and distant singing give it a drifting, psychedelic quality, while the softer sound allows smaller details to register. Mary Rose closes with a lighter character, though its repeated material makes the ending less economical than it might have been.
Echo Street is strongest when its changes of intensity also reveal a strong musical idea. Its sound is rich and inviting, and the band often make good use of the extra space. The less focused stretches hold it back, but the best songs show that Amplifier's gentler approach has substance as well as atmosphere.
