The Rapture

The Rapture: EchoesEchoes (2003)
Universal Music Group

Reviewer Rating: 3.5

Contributed by: maverickScott
(others by this writer | submit your own)
Published on January 16th 2004"Hype hype hype. Hype hype hype hype hype hype. Hype hype hype hype. Hype! Hype hype hype? Hype hype hype. Hype hype hype hype one of the best records of 2003." -every hipster magazine, circa December 2003 The Rapture are not the saviors of music. The Rapture are simply an overhyped e.

"Hype hype hype. Hype hype hype hype hype hype. Hype hype hype hype.

Hype! Hype hype hype? Hype hype hype.

Hype hype hype hype one of the best records of 2003."
-every hipster magazine, circa December 2003

The Rapture are not the saviors of music. The Rapture are simply an overhyped excuse of a dancepunk group who had all their beats handed to them on a silver platter. Anyone could make songs this good if DFA gave them the beats.

That being said, Echoes is a really fun, if rather uneven, album.

If you keep your ear to the New York hipster tracks, odds are you've already heard "House Of Jealous Lovers." The song's been out for over a year, and is still as infectious and danceable as it was the first time it was played. Plus it's got a cowbell. Right on.

Another standout is "Heaven," which really shows off the band's original influences such as Gang of Four and Wire, while still being propelled by a dancefloor beat. It's a near perfect amalgamation, one that's not duplicated for the majority of the album.

Songs like "Olio" are just too... electronic, frankly. How could a band ever play these live? I have no idea. The cheesy "I Need Your Love" is pretty much the death knell for the overrated DFA beats on here, sounding more like background music to "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" than an actual song.

The band's true talent in songwriting still peeks through at times, however. "Open Up Your Heart" is a loosely-assembled dirge of a Radiohead tribute with a nice saxophone part, and it's quite good. The album's title track sounds like Cedric Bixler-Zavala fronting Radio 4, and it works. "Love Is All" comes from out of leftfield, sounding more like Pavement or Sebadoh than The Faint or Duran Duran. It's a welcome change of pace.

Album closer "Infatuation" also runs a bit slower than most songs, and is sufficiently gloomy and eerie enough to bring the whole mood of the disc down. That's rather hard to do, considering the album's sole purpose seems to be "make awkward scenesters dance as if they knew how."

You really have to wonder what state of affairs music is in when hipper-than-thou webzines declare this album the best of the year simply because they can dance to it. Even more frustrating is the fact that you simply can't dance to most of these songs; some of these beats are so stunted that only Elaine from Seinfeld's dance moves would fit the bill.

Hype aside, Echoes is a fun album at times, but nowhere near as good as all the praise it's been receiving. The good does outweigh the bad, though, and I'm definitely curious to see where the band goes from here.

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Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not respon sible for them in any way. Seriously.

Anonymous (April 6, 2004)

House of Jealous Lovers = One of the worst sonmgs I've ever heard. Anywhere, anytime. Pure fucking garbage.

GreenVandal (January 22, 2004)

btw after seeing the faint (2 years ago i think...) im pretty sure that no one can dance.

Anonymous (January 22, 2004)

no review of 'echoes' is complete without the word 'hipster'.

btw i cant dance i and love this cd.

Anonymous (January 21, 2004)

"God, can everyone please shut the fuck up already....Public Image Ltd?!.....get your own material asshole."

i'm still trying to figure out who's "material" i'm stealing, apparently owning PiL records and a pair of ears makes me an asshole.

regardless, anyone who has given even a single listen to Second Edition could've made the connection.

Anonymous (January 20, 2004)

So everyone's still failed to realise that the singer in this band sounds like a cat being skinned then? Righto, then.

AdamSocial (January 20, 2004)

Dance music is not punk. I saw the Rapture about 2 years ago. I went to the show because my girlfriend at the time was into this kind of pretentious shit. I watched one song, then went outside to sit in the car and listen to the Pirates game. And I hate baseball.

- Adam
www.pittpunk.com

Anonymous (January 19, 2004)

black eyes take bright eyes wipe their collective ass with it.

ashton (January 19, 2004)

man, i want to dance i'd rather pump some atom and his package.

Anonymous (January 19, 2004)

C&C Music Factory are waaaay better than this dribble.

-sickboi

FortyMinutesWest (January 19, 2004)

It's nothing like Bright Eyes,thankfully. And that guy below summed it up perfectly.

GreenVandal (January 19, 2004)

The person below is definetly hilarious. And yes forty, my hipster ass will indeed go check out this "black eyes" you speak of.

But if its anything like bright eyes ::shakes fist::

Anonymous (January 19, 2004)

The person below is my hero.

-sickboi

Anonymous (January 19, 2004)

i bought this out of curiosity the day it came out cuz it was 7 bux at best buy. what a waste of 7 dollars. theres a reason disco died the first time around. skinny kids w/ the emo haircut can dance to this and then get coffee at starbux and store the cd in their across the chest side hanging book bag w/ ranier maria pins on it. ya know, one says ranier, one says maria. fuck this pretentious hipster garbage. repetititve, and annoying as fuck. 1234567 blah blah blah heaven heaven. how fucking stupid. these guys live in the house of jealous haircuts and cloth striped wrist bands.

Anonymous (January 19, 2004)

You guys should have posted this review a long time ago. Now everyone who's read bornbackwards, or pitchfork or buddyhead thinks they know more about this band than everyone else...or that they're so damn smart for knowing about this band. God, can everyone please shut the fuck up already....Public Image Ltd?!.....get your own material asshole.

Anonymous (January 19, 2004)

it's really nice when people forget about what other people have to say about a record and actually let their own opinion shine through in a review...oh wait...

Anonymous (January 19, 2004)

half the songs on echoes sound like public image ltd. particularly the title track, at first i thought it was a cover.

anyway, decent record, but it's the same shit, new decade.

JonLCFmag (January 18, 2004)

I usually agree w/scott, but hype or no hype, this record is in my top ten.

FortyMinutesWest (January 18, 2004)

I meant Black Eyes, not this crap, by the way.

Anonymous (January 18, 2004)

yeah, he is quite the little hipster.

FortyMinutesWest (January 18, 2004)

Vandal, you should check them out, you'd probably like them.

GreenVandal (January 18, 2004)

I have never heard of black eyes and i already like them better then this stuff.

Anonymous (January 18, 2004)

funkisdead here.
black eyes > the rapture, for sure.

Anonymous (January 18, 2004)

black eyes are doing everything more interestingly than the rapture is

boba_fett (January 18, 2004)

"This review was good, but here's how I would make it better:

1. What does hype mean?

2. I don't get it.

3. Stimpy: Oh rapture!"

did superdude forget his password or is this a superdude impersonator?

dignin (January 18, 2004)

black eyes kick so much ass, defiantly top ten of 2003.

FortyMinutesWest (January 18, 2004)

Black Eyes > A lot of bands, especially the Rapture

Anonymous (January 18, 2004)

This review was good, but here's how I would make it better:

1. What does hype mean?

2. I don't get it.

3. Stimpy: Oh rapture!

Anonymous (January 18, 2004)

"Black Eyes > The Rapture"

wrong. zero points for you my friend.

Anonymous (January 18, 2004)

Black Eyes > The Rapture

Anonymous (January 18, 2004)

yup.

Anonymous (January 18, 2004)

wow, then you're all losers.

musical-monkey (January 17, 2004)

"perhaps most importantly, inagreendase is registered over on absolutepunk.net. scandalous."

so is scott, so what? i'm registered over there as well.

that house of jealous lovers song is pretty awesome, i was tempted to pick this up when i saw it for 9.99 today, but i decided to resist and hear more.

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

dont forget !!! my friends

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

if i hadn't read this review, i wouldn't have left my warm apartment to roam the cold streets towards my nearest indie cd store.... i also wouldn't have seen the new statistics record on sale four days early, and then i would have missed out on some great rock.

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

i don't really like the term "fantasy metal", yellowtrash: it sounds like a porno that Blackie Lawless would have done when he was down on his luck
"pompous metal" is really more like it, but whatever

-notaclevername

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

perhaps most importantly, inagreendase is registered over on absolutepunk.net.
scandalous.

adam (January 17, 2004)

"I'd also like to second Adam's comment on sensibly priced CDs."

I can't believe that the rest of the majors haven't grasped this idea. It's rediculously simple: I would not have purchased your product if not for the price. Thats about it, sure I was curious about it but I'm never, EVER paying 26 dollars (Canadian) for an album ever again. I think Echos was 9.99 at HMV. That's a fine "impulse buy" price for me and a good move on Universal's part.

-adam

hungryjoe (January 17, 2004)

Hey Scott, I don't think people get angry because you get free CDs, I think it's more because you have habit of saying shit like "I can't comment on album X because label Y hasn't sent it to me for free". That just annoys people who paid for it.

I'd also like to second Adam's comment on sensibly priced CDs. I'd probably never buy this if it was priced at $18, but if I see it for $10, I might just buy it. I've bought a lot of stuff I probably wouldn't have because of the price. If I go in to a store and can get 2 or 3 cds for $30, or one for $20, I'll probably spend the $30. But, record labels don't listen to me.....

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

"olio" was a good song when they first released it, this new version is terrible though. i like the rapture a lot when theyre using shitty sounding guitars to make dancy songs (like gang of four), but the electronics seem like a cop out for them. boring record

Haggard (January 17, 2004)

"And I'd like to take a dump on you for giving Billy Talent 4 stars."

They deserved one star.

-Justin

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

this album shits all over deja entendu and you know it.

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

"I still dump a good majority of my tiny income back into music."

And I'd like to take a dump on you for giving Billy Talent 4 stars.

dignin (January 17, 2004)

how is The Bens cd?

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

Hey I've got The Bens ep aswell, I saw them when they came to Australia. Kweller and Folds were fantastic, not a real fan of Lee though.

-bemused-

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

dance punk? try The Prima Donnas!!

kirbypuckett (January 17, 2004)

Isn't that one of the bootleg cereals?

Off note, why the hell does Canada have milk in a bag?

- Kirby

maverick (January 17, 2004)

"Hey look Scott, Adam actually buys cd's. Maybe one day you will too."

I just received in the mail today the fifty dollars worth of Death Cab For Cutie CDs I bought from Barsuk. I also received my copy of The Bens EP I bought from attackedbyplastic.com.

Don't get mad at me because I get free shit sometimes. I still dump a good majority of my tiny income back into music.

Or DVDs.

Or Marshmallow Mateys. Mmm, Marshmallow Mateys...

-Scott

FortyMinutesWest (January 17, 2004)

I'd say they're a mix of both. Now lets go questing...

yellowtrash (January 17, 2004)

Rhapsody power metal? I would call them Fantasy Metal.

Anonymous (January 17, 2004)

too disco-y, singer sounds a little like Tom Verlaine....meh.
(and FortyMinutesWest, Rhapsody?...where the HELL did that power metal reference come from [unless there's another band [or album] called Rhapsody that I don't know about, which there probably is)

-notaclevername

Anonymous (January 16, 2004)

i like it and i'm not a hipster. it's alright that you don't, but comparing any of the music on here to the twink techno on queer eye for the straight guy is like saying that the clash sound just like creed.

Anonymous (January 16, 2004)

Hey look Scott, Adam actually buys cd's. Maybe one day you will too.

Jesse (January 16, 2004)

The actual dancebeat songs are good. The stuff that sounds like a cheap rip-off of The Clash/everything else, isn't. There are a lot more bad songs. And the singer is just trying to be Robert Smith.

FortyMinutesWest (January 16, 2004)

They're sure as hell not Rhapsody!

greg6711 (January 16, 2004)

House OOOOFFFFF

JEEEAALLOUSS LOVVVVVERRRRS!

Love that song

This cd lives up to the hype

it's fun, it's sexy,
it's damn good
greg6711

kirbypuckett (January 16, 2004)

There's a big article on the 80's in today's Pittsburgh Post Gazette, these guys took a huge chunk of it.

I'm interested.

- Kirby

Anonymous (January 16, 2004)

Yeah, hyped til no end. Still, a really enjoyable and fun album. Something different for my collection.

adam (January 16, 2004)

I just bought this album yesterday, mostly out of curiousity out of why Pitchfork's going so crazy about it (that and Universal slapped a price on it I couldn't refuse, don't deny the positive effects of sensibly pricing your albums)... and I think my opinion so far mirror's Scott's. This is a fun album, but I'm convinced they're getting far more hype than they're worth.

-adam

some1 (January 16, 2004)

you would be right!

Anonymous (January 16, 2004)

So liking this CD a lot makes me a hipster. Interesting.
I could use the same logic to say that Deja Entendu is for pseudopunkhipsters.

Anonymous (January 16, 2004)

hahahaha the score is for the seinfeld remark

Anonymous (January 16, 2004)

scott, you should start taking requests for reviews. that would rock. so many shitty albums being reviewed, and when they are good....the review is usually by a shitty reviewer. no justice.

Anonymous (January 16, 2004)

http://www.silentuproar.com/showreview.php?ID=587

I concur with that reviewe. Scott, what's with you this week, reviewing last year's albums, giving Billy Talent 4 stars, now this?

The score is for the drugs, it's bad for you Scott

hungryjoe (January 16, 2004)

I've got a fever....and the only perscription...

Anonymous (January 16, 2004)

pfft so many nyc bands have adopted this sound already.