Yeti Lane - The Echo Show

When an albums press release claims legends such as Kraftwerk, My Bloody Valentine, Can, Teenage Fanclub, Spacemen 3 and Pavement as comparisons, there needs to be some hard evidence on show as justification. Luckily, Yeti Lane produce it in the form of the ten brilliant exhibits interspersed with 4 short instrumental breaks that together make up The Echo Show; the second album from the Parisian psych-pop duo. The record is a beautiful mixture of spacey psychedelia and pop sensibility, synth drones and dancey beats, howling noise and intricate, glistening, guitar riffs. Yeti Lane are to Kraftwerk, Spectrum and Spacemen 3 what MGMT are to Syd Barret's Floyd and The Beach Boys.

There are obvious kraut/space rock influences at the forefront of Yeti Lane's sound but their songwriting shines through the haze and makes for an accessible album that moulds the characteristic atmospheric sounds of the genre around pop song formulas rather than the repetitive two chord, 10 minute pieces usually associated with it. Songs such as 'The Echo Show' 'Warning Sensations' and 'Strange Call' really show off the duo's flare for pop writing whilst later tracks like the balladic 'Sparkling Sunbeam', 'Dead Tired' and majestic closer 'Faded Spectrum' echo the drive of Autobahn, the luscious noise of Ride's Nowhere as well as Soul Kiss Glide Divine era Spectrum in their understated beats, pulsing drones, beautiful synth textures, fierce wah wails and dripping guitar riffs.

The scales of songwriting and production experimentation are balanced perfectly on this record and although the band admit that the album is more focused on "arrangements, sounds, musical landscapes and waves of noise than songwriting"  there is a definite presence of melodic structure and classic songwriting stamped on each and every track. The Echo Show is a perfect example of a band capable of using all the hallmarks of their heroes and influences and incorporate them into their own sound and writing style, rather than going for an outright nostalgia/revival sound. There are nods to the old masters all over the record but they don't make up the album in the way they do for other bands producing music in this vein at the moment - where other bands have gone for straight imitation, Yeti Lane have used a bit of imagination and created a modern, emotional and sprawling album that isn't limited to geeks of the genre and does justice to the purveyors of the sounds they've adopted.