After months upon months of waiting, The Rapture’s first real LP, “Echoes” was finally released this past Tuesday.
The album finds the four fashionable males getting off the EP routine – their two previous releases came in the half album fomat – and signed to a major label – Universal.
Besides appearance related changes, the Rapture’s music as a whole seemingly has undergone a reformat.
Originally signed to the DFA label for “Echoes,” the band experimented with label co-collaborators on the album’s production. Studio work began with the band laying down tracks and overlays, then putting the necessary pieces together and shipping their product to DFA post-producers. There, the tracks were stripped apart, reworked and placed newly back together for final production.
While previous Rapture works exhibited heavy influences in regard to disco, underground dance and 80s new wave, each one protruded with a rawness and teeming punk feel. “Echoes,” on the other hand, takes the band’s influences of choice and places them squarely on the LP’s center stage. Tracks such as “Olio” -which originally appeared on the Rapture’s first EP “Mirror”- are bop to a mid-tempo dance beat over dramatic lyrics and constant synth riff. “Open Up Your Heart,” an emotional ballad dripping with the David Bowie of yore may catch those familiar with past Rapture outings completely by surprise.
The Rapture’s previously signature electroclash sound hasn’t been completely shed, yet. Interspliced within the new disco are rough foot-stompers such as “Floating in a Constant Heaven,” and last year’s ever-popular dance crash “House of Jealous Lovers.” White-squall vocals mixed over a twanged, distorted guitar might appease those not ready to wave the white flag to the 80s re-revolution, but as a whole might be some disappointment.
Attempting resist, the 1980s cultural redux seems to be becoming increasingly more difficult. “Echoes” might not make for a bad album as much as a guilty pleasure for those conscious enough to remember pop culture in the decade of fast-paced greed.
