Echo Ladies – Lilies (2023)        


Review:
You could be forgiven for thinking Echo Ladies had vanished into the ether. In the five years since the Swedish shoegazers released the acclaimed Pink Noise, things have been worryingly quiet. Worry no longer though because the Malmo trio are back with superb new album, Lilies. It’s a record that still boasts the coming of age celluloid dreaminess that reeled us in, but there’s a clear a shift in the sound of the new record that reflects the ups and downs of recent years in the lives of Matilda Botwid, Mattis Andersson, and Joar Andersén. Lead single “Dirty Dancing” opens with stabs of doomy synths and a sparse drum beat akin to Joy Division’s “She Lost Control,” but once again Botwid’s soothing vocal wraps itself around a swooning melody that lands a world away from Ian Curtis’ austere baritone. Comparisons to the Echo Ladies sound have understandably fixated on shoegaze and dream-pop royalty like as Slowdive and Cocteau Twins, but the mangled guitar squall of “Coming Home” doesn’t even try to hide its homage to the more contemporary influence of A Place to Bury Strangers. Having spoken of their fandom of the “loudest band in New York,” Echo Ladies unleash a tune of such explosiveness that it would sit comfortably on any of Oliver Ackermann and co.’s latest long players. But don’t be lulled into thinking Echo Ladies have turned their backs on the sort of sugary melodies that leave you yearning for the romance of a youth you probably only ever lived in daydreams. For a few seconds into “Getting On Me” it sounds like they’re about to cover “Footloose,” but where you may have been prepared for leg warmers and leotards you instead get comforting layers of fuzz and mechanical drum machine beats. The party piece that really sets Echo Ladies apart from their peers is the ability to merge breakneck melodies with floaty vocals that somehow find a seamless synchronicity amongst the chaos. There’s probably a name for such a wonder of physics, but you only nead to hear stunning single “Awake” to find the perfect example. Once again Botwid’s sumptuous voice glides as if in slow motion over the song’s giddy signature guitar riff and machine gun drum fills. Likewise, “Illness” and “Strangers.” The former’s giddy bassline trots along like a dancing horse in an Olympic equestrian event, before a handbrake turn slows things right down with the Scandinavian chanteuse at her most ethereal. Every great album needs a strong closer though, and “Funeral” is exactly that. Hymnal synths bathe a spectral guitar riff to orchestrate all the tension of a spaghetti western shoot-out in the aisle of a sonic cathedral. — undertheradarmag.com


   


Track List:
01 - Fabrik
02 - Selfcontrol
03 - Dirty Dancing
04 - Coming Home
05 - Lilies
06 - Getting On Me
07 - Awake
08 - Illness
09 - Strangers
10 - Funeral


Media Report:
Genre: indie-pop, shoegaze
Origin: Malmö, Sweden  
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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