The Morning Benders - Big Echo

Ah, summertime. The clocks go forward and all of a sudden people tend to be a little chirpier, you notice a slight spring in your step, and then an album like Big Echo appears seemingly out of nowhere, sounding like it was tailor-made to soundtrack lazy days spent lying in the sun. Hailing from California, The Morning Benders have made a record that is radio-friendly, and yet laced to the gills with amazing melodies and enough quirks to keep you interested through each of the varying genres that it covers. It’s the record MGMT’s record label probably wish their band had made, instead of the mad-as-a-brush Congratulations. 

Opener ‘Excuses’ sets the mood early on; with a waltz-like tempo layered in acoustic guitars, the song builds to a glorious crescendo around halfway through, as the harmonies and string section collide to produce One Of Those Moments that make you want to punch the air and scream for joy. They sound like a band playing with permanent grins on their faces, and it’s a perfect way to start the album. 

From there, each track has its own idea about what the band actually want to sound like: some fuzzy grungy rock here, a little jangly folk-rock there, but always blanketed in a thick Spector-esque wall of sound. Big Echo - the bands second album following 2008's quietly-released Talking Through Tin Cans - contains more ideas spread across its ten tracks than most bands manage in a whole career. Take ‘Cold War’ for example; arguably the catchiest track here – not to mention, at only 1 minute 44 seconds, the shortest – it boasts a melody and chorus hook that keep creeping back into my head, even if I haven’t listened to the song for days. That’s followed by the wonderful ‘Pleasure Sighs’, which begins like an early Neil Young & Crazy Horse tune before morphing into a Mercury Rev-like mini-epic that sounds like it could collapse in on itself at any moment. 

While frontman and chief songwriter Chris Chu’s obvious contemporary influences would include the likes of The Shins and Summerteeth-era Wilco, he seems more in thrall to the sunshine pop of the late sixties than to anything coming out of the current indie scene. Having said that, Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor does share production duties with Chu, so some of that band’s sonic trademarks end up on Big Echo. Mainly, though, this sounds like Chu’s record, and even if he does wear his influences somewhat blatantly on his sleeves, this is certainly no regressive retro-rock fantasy. Rather, it’s a record brimming with confidence and originality thanks to its creators’ sheer joy in making music that they want to hear. The plan seems to have been to throw enough ingredients into the mix that eventually you’ll come up with something fresh, and that’s what The Morning Benders have managed. It’s a worthy soundtrack to any summer, and an early-ish contender for (whisper it) album of the year