Send "Morning Benders " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Contactmusic |
 Big Echo is the second album from California four piece The Morning Benders and shows the now New York based band move their sound to the next level, kicking on from where their debut album left them in 2008. The dream like Excuses floats in like one of the waves featured on the albums artwork, a mixture of soothing acoustic guitars and dreamy MGMT like vocals, it sounds like a vintage 60s record recorded using analogue. A perfect way to introduce an album. Promises however is a far more bluesy effort, featuring riffs that bulge with attitude, it's more of a groove than Excuses but it has the same pleasing effect as it rumbles to a euphoric close. The California 4 piece show their roots in the shape of the Beach Boys sounding Wet Cement, a transient song that stays in gear one throughout and yet doesn't stop being absorbing all the same. Again featuring some beautifully soft vocals, its one of many of its ilk on Big Echo. The pace is picked up on Cold War and it's to the albums benefit as The Morning Benders show their variation. A funkier effort that anything else on the album, it again stays within the 60s styling's of other album tracks yet adds some more bite, its only downfall is its 1:40 length. The funky styling's of Cold War are maintained in the shape of All Day Day Light, heavy bass lines define a track that represents the most rock roll track on the album. Its Contrast quickly clashes against the proceeding Verve like Stitches, a sombre affair that features some impressive guitar playing while being in debt to some imaginative production as it hides behind an Phil Spector like wall of sound. It's an atmospheric track that highlights the bands maturity and acts as a perfect example of the bands development since debut album Talking Through Tin Cans....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| Album titles can often sum up the albums themselves. Case in point: the Morning Benders' 2008 debut, Talking Through Tin Cans, a collection of boilerplate indie rock that borrowed more than a bit from the Shins' jangle pop. Despite a few bright spots, the record branded the San Franciscan outfit with a second-tier reputation. Add that to the fact that the Shins aren't groundbreakers themselves, and Talking Through Tin Cans begins to sound as limited as the rudimentary children's activity suggested in its title. The title to the Benders' sophomore effort and Rough Trade debut, Big Echo, appropriately evokes their sonic shift in the past two years. The album is a homecoming of sorts, as it finds the Morning Benders correcting their PacNW indie pop identity crisis in favor of a more coastal, kaleidoscopic California haze. It also finds them embracing the cavernous experimental rock sound of Grizzly Bear, whose Chris Taylor shares a co-production credit with Benders singer/guitarist Christopher Chu. Big Echo kicks off with "Excuses", a sunny, lilting little ditty that carries simultaneous debts to 1950s pop balladry and Sgt. Pepper's-inspired orchestral mania. The song is an easygoing and excellent introduction to the Benders' stylistic changes, and its charming melody serves as an adequate explanation as to how these guys got so many San Franciscan music notables into one room to perform the tune for videographers Yours Truly. The trio that follow "Excuses" round out Big Echo's more accessible front-end and come closest to the Benders' previous, less complicated sound. Even then, the band finds ways to add touches of weirdness to each track. "Promises" may be just another song about an uncertain relationship, but the song's big-beat thump and tangled voices add something sticky to the bittersweet presentation. The simple shuffle of "Wet Cement" is augmented by scale-sliding background vocals, while the economical "Cold War (Nice Clean Fight)" features glockenspiel to accentuate its ramshackle charm....full text |
| Dustedmagazine |
| For those internet rough riders out there, your first exposure to the Morning Benders was probably a live in-studio cut with the self-described Echo Chamber Orchestra. Head bender Christopher Chu explains the advance arrangement’s extra personnel for the pre-ordained triumphal anthem "Excuses" by going into his appreciation for Phil Spector and his wall of sound recording techniques. “He would just pile fifty people into the studio and just blow it out,” goes the introduction. “I thought it would be really cool to do that with our friends.” The result is certainly big: a kitchen cabinet session with the likes of Christopher Owens and John Vanderslice kicking around, while Chu conducts the highs and lows that swirl around him. It’s an exercise in geocentrism. With all the new meddling, "Excuses" takes on a life of its own that far surpasses the album version that opens up Big Echo. It’s also a pretty disingenuous display. A malapropism at best, a needless namecheck at worst. There’s nothing all that Spector-ish about the sound. Sure, there’s lots of people, lots of instruments, but there’s no raw, overbearing force behind any of it. It’s all very carefully orchestrated. Nothing blows out at all. It all goes according to plan. Chu not only conducts the song, but the pseudo-event that he is constructing around him. “The celebration is held, photographs are taken, the occasion is widely reported,” goes Daniel Boorstin’s description of such happenings. And the occasion for the convening of the Echo Chamber Orchestra lines up pretty easily with this definition. Chu ably manufactures a visual and personal experience to match up perfectly with the manufactured sentiment of the song. Another aspirant to what Chris Weingarten so derisively referred to recently as "this whole ‘indie rock artist as IMPORTANT composer’ thing...Snake fuckin oil." Harsh, but not without merit. Big Echo tries so hard for transcendence, it never gets out of the weeds. Anyone making the argument that pop music isn’t constructed or manipulative is a fool, but we tend to like a little wool over the eyes. No one wants their manipulation laid bare for all to see. Dancing around that nebulous concept of authenticity is ultimately what we’re talking about here, and the Morning Benders falter. Hard. Don’t take this as condemnation for sounding similar. Formulas, and nostalgia, pays for a reason. The sin the Morning Benders are guilty of slipping into is akin to, though not as egregious, as the Dirty Projectors. These songs are ultimately undone by their ambition in an attempt to turn what could be pleasantly ephemeral fare into moment-defining anthems. Such Longstrethian self-importance plays out as just awkward quirk. Big Echo demands the kind of seriousness in indie-pop music that just isn’t there. The band hasn’t learned from their predecessors like Of Montreal, who embraced that quirk to the point of raucous self-parody, or the Unicorns, who saw how unsustainable it was and just kind of faded away....full text |
Morning Benders lyrics
|
| |||||||
