Echoboy

Two singing bassists who are a real-life couple, backed only by a synth and a drum machine: It sounds like a recipe for either rock'n roll heaven or a doggie's dinner disaster. But fear not, kids, New Yorkers Mommy and Daddy are the former...a full-frontal assault to your eardrums with XL-sized shots of caffeine.

Pacing and jumping through their set like two baby tigers in need of Ritalin, they come over all Beastie Boys with added flirtation, before morphing into Chicks on Speed's younger sister and totally charming themselves into your head.

If you're a sucker for a beat that has a life of its own, and bands that act like more bands should (playing like they're doing a riot!), you'll adore Mommy and Daddy.

Then it's onto Mute resident Echoboy. And this is where the road splits for me, from solid pleasure for the ears to a disparity between the utterly ecstatically amazing, and... well, the not quite as good really.

The thing is, Echoboy has the potential and skill to be breathtakingly good. Anyone who's heard his 'Volume 1' and '2' albums will attest to that. He hits that space between darkness and light, love and fear so well and so unusally that it can bring tears to your eyes. There are moments like that during this gig and they feed your soul like twisted ambrosia.

But there are times when you can't quite believe your ears. It seems mostly due to a shift in focus: Echoboy does electronica well. Very well in fact. What he doesn't do as well is rock, and the guitars fight off the synths tonight, in a ratio of 2:1, yeah the guitars are winning, but the sound isn't.

And then there's the difference between how lyrics fit into electronica and rock/pop. Where Thin Dizzy Anonymous can jump around shouting mostly any combination of words and be ok, electronic music (I mean dark electronica, not dancepop) is less forgiving. Lyrics don't need to actually be all that deep, but overall their shape and meaning needs slightly stronger gravity or they'll get blown right off. Know anyone that didn't laugh when New Order sung "Here comes love, it's like honey: you can't buy it with money..."? And that's the sort of lyric that keeps popping through the noise to stun you.

Sometimes music is so powerful that vocals only spoil it, like adding meat to a perfectly fine veggie dish. You get the feeling some of the songs would be happier just instrumental.

That's not to say that Echoboy cannot sing, far from it. His vocals are rough and fragile diamonds when they fit in with the mood. You just can't help feeling like he's trying to be something that he's not, while naturally being something beautiful he doesn't want.

Echoboy, this is serious: I require you to stop messing and get back to being fucking amazing! Yes.