Echo Lake – Hoxton Bar and Kitchen, London 28/02/11

There have been enough words uttered about Hoxton Bar and Kitchen’s potentially vacuous atmospherics. Of course the slander thrown its way inferring its faux hip status, its not-actually-so-slimming slender hub and such are pretty much throwaway now. On a personal level, this venue has brought me such a mixed bag of memories, good and bad, that it merely, now (and like it should), boils down to the band that you wait longingly for to see there. And in the case of Echo Lake, following their mesmerising Young Silence debut on No Pain In Pop, it seems that it is not just me that is thrown by the excitement they bring to the stage.

From the off, it seems that the intentions aren’t to lull you into an ethereal false sense of security like on record. Blasting through lead track ‘Young Silence’ at an alarming pace could leave so many similar bands with little else to follow it up – but it’s a testament to this dramatic shift in sonics that the set doesn’t relent. Their sound is breathed a new life behind the admittedly beautifully distorted shroud that envelops their recorded sound, formulating the dreaded, but completely appropriate, ‘wall of noise’ analogy in my noise soaked head.

What does appear to remain, despite the swift tear of the record’s reverberating cobweb, is the attention grabbing changes of pace. A lot of bands miss a trick of dynamic with their stuttered breathlessness – this lot, on the other hand, thrive in the immediate. No stops, no throw away exchange of words to a seemingly disparate yet transfixed audience. They leave every note and kick of sonic dexterity to work the dialogue. Consider the muted confidence of singer Linda, whose clear and present shyness is completely outweighed by an immaculate voice tonight – she becomes an embodiment of the band’s whirlwind texture, underpinning the band’s whirlwind tour de force.

It only becomes apparent when the shifts in pace turn to the speedier side of the clock just what a clutch the band hold over the audience. The swooning nature of ‘Buried At Sea’ can still seduce even the most heartless of muso’s, but it’s in moments like ‘Sunday Evening’ where the band’s urgency shines and resonates throughout the increasingly awe-struck audience. The suddenly effervescent dexterity and anti-metronomic speed of the percussion brings an ever increasing pulse, until the agitated whole breaks down, come the end, into a desperate clamour for the remnants of what has just seemed to fly past.

While they may be in their infancy, it would be hard to die, on witnessing both recorded stylisitcs and live power, Echo Lake are sure to be playing beyond these oft maligned walls before long.