Big Echo is fantastic. I’m just going to come right out and say it like it is. I’ve been a Morning Benders fan for about two years now, and I’ve never seen this much growth in a band in this short amount of time. It’s kind of baffling, because none of the members of this Berkeley band are over the age of 24.
A far cry from their youthful and surf-pop debut, 2008’s Talking Through Tin Cans, Big Echo was co-produced by frontman Chris Chu and friend Chris Taylor of Grizzly Bear. Even without knowing that, it’s almost impossible to not recognize Grizzly Bear’s influence on Big Echo, as the Morning Benders utilized a plethora of different percussion instruments and even more prominent layered vocals than their last album. Overall, it all came together in what Chu called a “wall of sound.” There’s no empty space in these songs, filling your ears with heavy bass, majestic strings, trickling piano chords, jazzy vocals and so much percussion it sounds like they recorded drummer Julian Harmon playing at least three different instruments several times. But it’s not overdone. The quartet still managed to keep the refreshing lo-fi sound that they did so well on Talking Through Tin Cans.
No track on the album better exemplifies that fact than the opening song, “Excuses,” which the band recently recorded with a bunch of fellow Bay Area musicians, releasing a video along with it. “Excuses” is nothing short of lovely, even starting off with the less-than-suggestive lyrics of, “you try to taste me, and I taped my tongue to the southern tip of your band.” Chu’s harmonies make for a song that sways beautifully like that awkward first dance. It’s darling, it’s natural, and it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside (pardon the cliché).
Other standouts include “Promises,” “Cold War (Nice Clean Fight),” “Hand Me Downs,” and “Stitches.” The band released “Promises” several months ago via their website, so this was my first taste of Big Echo, and it was a good foreshadowing. The “wall of sound” mixed with familiar garage rock swagger made for a perfectly balanced (hopefully) first single. “Cold War” is by far the quickest and most upbeat of all the tracks on the album, staying at a keen 1:44 and featuring a toy piano and a driving set of hand claps, and it’s just light enough to catch your breath, metaphorically speaking, in the midst of the heavier songs. With “Hand Me Downs,” you get a great vocal hook – “when we fall, when we fall, when we fall far away,” as well as a strong guitar riff sporadically throughout the 3:46 track, reminding me of Grizzly Bear’s “While You Wait for the Others,” building the sound until the end when it drifts off into pure vocal harmonies.
Vocal harmony is one thing that holds Big Echo together like Mighty Putty, like an underlying pattern in a designer’s spring collection, like a photographer’s watermark. And the Morning Benders had it even before Taylor came on to help produce it, but with his help they’ve polished it into an excellent second album.
When I saw the Morning Benders open for Grizzly Bear back in October, there was one song that I remembered, “Stitches.” I remembered it being soft and slow, with a building intensity matched with Chu’s subtle and easy vocals. Listening to it on the record was exactly how I remembered – as just one of those songs you have to listen to without any distractions so you get all the goosebumps possible.
Honestly, on my first listen of Big Echo, I was very surprised as to how toned-down it was from Talking Through Tin Cans, but it was all part of the Morning Benders natural growth, honing their writing and recording skills. And bringing Taylor on as co-producer wasn’t a bad idea either, seeing that Grizzly Bear’s Veckatimest was one of the highest-rated albums of 2009. Just as well, being one of the highly anticipated albums of early 2010, Big Echo surely delivered on all marks. Remaining youthful without being pretentious, the Morning Benders will hopefully keep going with the two stellar albums in their repertoire.
