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The five members of Etches have come from all corners of the country but are based in Liverpool for now. They confess to having a shared love of ‘understated electronics’ and that certainly is what strikes me immediately from the first few bars. Where a guitar riff would/could be there is a heavy, bassy electronic beat as the basis of the song, which is intriguing for me right from the off. I am immediately wondering where the vocals are going to be pitched or what the melody is going to be. I am not disappointed. A smooth baritone emerges not unlike Ian McCulloch (Echo & The Bunnymen) and the overall feel is very much 1980’s Post-Punk dusted off and updated for today’s listener. The opening lines are quite understated before it goes up a notch and I’m hooked before we even get to the chorus. There is a touch of Kings of Leon in the vocal melody and we know that K.O.L, for whatever reason, have a way of capturing the listening public. Etches has it in it to do the same.
I love the interplay between the electonic beat, the guitar parts and the vocal. I know electronic beats are featuring more and more in today’s ‘alternative/indie’ music, as bands take the lead from The Killers and Coldplay. Bastille have already broken through and I see no reason why Etches can’t either if they continue to write tunes as massive and catchy as ‘Let’s Move In’. All I can say is, I gave this a couple of listens a few hours before I sat down to seriously listen to it for the review, and I already had the tune rattling around in my head after those two listens. Repeated listens have not dampened my enthusiasm and I hear more and more echoes of other bands but blended together to form something with original quality.
I know very little about the band to impart any more to you, but it already has XFM DJ Hattie Pearson managing them, so I expect its profile to rise over the coming months. Get in there on the ground level, so you can say to your mates, ‘I heard Etches first’.
