Electrelane Albums (4)
What The Critics Say
Beginning with their breakthrough second effort, The Power Out, it feels like Electrelane has had a specific focus for each album. The Power Out itself added vocals to their sound, Axes concentrated on experiments in tension and release, and No Shouts No Calls delivers a set of urgent, romantic epics. This may not be their most dramatic album -- the women of Electrelane don't get around to their lock-groove rock until the seventh track, "Between the Wolf and the Dog" -- but its best songs are among the band's finest work. Tracks like "The Greater Times" and "To the East" are direct yet complex, with soaring melodies and lyrics like "I'm just waiting until you say these words/Come back, come back"; the contrast between intimate, almost too-personal words and the swelling sounds around them is exquisite. And while the album is dominated by intense, impatient joy of "At Sea," which rides glorious swells of keyboards and fuzzy guitars, its lightly heartbroken moments are just as lovely: "Saturday" boasts beautiful call-and-response vocals and lyrics that feel like a nursery rhyme about a breakup; "Cut and Run" pairs a lighthearted melody and ukulele with the painful realization that a relationship is likely over. No Shouts No Calls' instrumentals are just as strong as the tracks with vocals, and revel in the pure emotional power of sound. "Tram 21"'s mischievous organ and guitar interplay is jaunty and slightly trippy, while "Five" is the album's searing, insistent powerhouse. No Shouts No Calls might be some of Electrelane's most accessible work, but it's far from safe; in fact, its sweet vulnerability is exactly what makes it so special. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Though it arrives only a little over a year after the radiant The Power Out, Electrelane's third album Axes is a very different beast than their previous effort. Actually, it's more of a piece with the band's lengthy, improv-based debut, Rock It to the Moon, with keyboard-driven, largely instrumental tracks that often sound like a chamber music group playing forgotten Sonic Youth compositions. Both Rock It to the Moon and Axes show that Electrelane has undeniable talent as an instrumental post-rock band, but the mix of this talent with vocals and pop song structures on The Power Out was so striking that it almost can't help but be disappointing that the band didn't follow that direction on this album, too. To be fair, Axes does have a handful of tracks that expand on what Electrelane did on The Power Out: "The Bells" is a lovely track built on a Krautrock pulse and alternately pounding and rippling pianos and topped with pretty but not overly sweet vocals from Verity Susman and company; its ebb and flow make it one of the band's best pieces yet. "Two for Joy" is equally ecstatic, while "The Partisan" -- a continuation of the dark, driving instrumental "Those Pockets Are People" -- comes close to recapturing The Power Out's freewheeling energy, if not its balance of pop and improvisation. "I Keep Losing Heart," meanwhile, feels like the rural cousin of that album's choral epic, "The Valleys," with its banjo, brass, and massed harmonies. While most of the vocal tracks are fairly solid, the instrumentals are of mixed quality. "If Not Now, When?" is a standout, beginning as a pretty, cheerfully sophisticated piano melody before becoming more and more urgent and finally ending, emphatically, with breaking noises. The tango-inflected "Eight Steps" and "Gone Darker," which pairs a skronky saxophone with train whistles, also work well, but too many of the pieces follow a predictable arc by reaching a peak toward the middle and then tapering off. Then there's the dreadful "Business or Otherwise," a collection of stops and starts that could be seen as an exercise in tension and release, but not a good one. Axes' last track, "Suitcase," salvages the album by mixing the best parts of the band's vocal and instrumental approaches into a glorious, nearly ten-minute finale. Still, there are too many stumbles and missed opportunities to consider the album anything but disappointing. Here's hoping Electrelane's next album has a better balance of the band's different strengths. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
'The Power Out'
Release Date 2/3/2004
Tracks 11
Label Beggars Banquet
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Electrelane's second album, The Power Out, is also their debut for the esteemed, arty British label Too Pure, the perfect home for a band that resembles so many of the imprint's other acts. The similarities appear early on, with the Stereolab-eqsue motorik and French vocals that drive "Gone Under Sea," the wobbly-yet-charming singing on "Birds" that recalls Pram's Rosie Cuckston, and the intricate interplay of guitars and keyboards on every track that bring to mind th' Faith Healers (and their later incarnation, Quickspace). But these similarities are far from derivative; instead, on The Power Out, Electrelane feel like they're in the tradition of these other messy, angular, decidedly British art-punk bands, so much so that it's hard to imagine the band on any other label (with all due respect to Mr. Lady, who released Electrelane's debut, Rock It to the Moon). But even though the group perfectly defines the way that so many British art-school bands have sounded since the late '70s, in Electrelane's hands it still seems fresh. The Power Out also seems fresher than Rock It to the Moon, perhaps because, paradoxically, it's more focused than their debut. That's a relative term, though; the noodly, jam-based feel that dominated Rock It to the Moon is still here, particularly on The Power Out's more rock-based songs such as "Take the Bit Between Your Teeth" and the closing instrumentals, "Only One Thing Is Needed" and "You Make Me Weak at the Knees." But overall, the songs are more concise here, giving songs like "On Parade" and the lovely "Enter Laughing" an immediate, if not exactly poppy, feel. The band finds different ways to channel the ambitions it so boldly displayed on Rock It to the Moon: "Oh Sombra!" is an eerie, passionate song fashioned from a sonnet from Spanish poet Juan Boscan, and "This Deed" borrows a line from Nietzsche to fit its appropriately dramatic air. Most striking of all is "The Valleys," a choral rock piece that features Chicago A Cappella and Verity Sussman's arresting vocals, and attains a ceremonial, spiritual grandeur that hasn't been seen in many rock records save the Microphones' Mount Eerie. The Power Out manages to be unique without being a radical departure, and it augurs more good things for Electrelane's stint with Too Pure. ~ Heather Phares, All Music Guide
'Rock It to the Moon'
Release Date 4/30/2001
Tracks 11
Label Let's Rock!
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Barking dogs, carnival rides, storming guitars, and organs -- lots of organs -- ranging from ominous to pummeling figure in Electrelane's debut. It's quite possible that most of the songs are the result of jamming. That's what it sounds like, at least. Jam-based records are prone to much noodling, which isn't a problem with Rock It to the Moon; actually, the predominantly instrumental record sounds like a live show with lots of ebbs, flows, freakouts, and chill-outs. It's a rare instance where the maximum space allowed on a disc is used in a good way for a studio record. Electrelane didn't just stuff it because they happened to have enough songs. And the length doesn't smack of a massive collective ego; it smacks more of a group too excited to be making music together to ever stop. There are too many ideas floating throughout and there are too many extended passages to warrant major pruning. If a disc held 100 minutes, this would probably be 99 minutes long. Besides, who wants to put a stop to fun? "Long Dark" crosses Stereolab with Duane Eddy; it even throws some "Peter Gunn" into its nine minutes, along with some feverish keyboard licks that mimic Hot Butter's "Popcorn." "Gabriel" is probably the best Cliff's Notes summation of the record, beginning with a mournful lurch that explodes into a frenzy of blasting, racing instruments and those wild keyboards featured earlier. Imagine a funeral procession turning into a chase scene that passes through a desert, only to end abruptly with a pileup. Those barking dogs mentioned earlier remind one of Pink Floyd's "Dogs," but that's laid to rest when a contorted voice intones "I wanna be your dog." Ahh, the dogs are a Stooges reference -- of course. ~ Andy Kellman, All Music Guide
