(Translated from my original Italian text by Gemini and Piero Scaruffi)
Echobelly were a multiracial London quintet fronted by Sonya Aurora-Madan (playing the role of the riot grrrl, but with a register resembling that of Debbie Harry of Blondie), featuring Glenn Johansson and Debbie Smith (formerly of Curve) on guitar.
The Swede is the primary composer of the music, which starts where the Smiths left off. The customary procession of singleswhich, from the hypnotic/exotic pace of Bellyache (Pandemonium), led to the fizzy emphasis of Insomniac and the electric I Can't Imagine The World Without Mepaves the way for the album Everyone's Got One (Fauve, 1994), a collection of spineless songs that rely primarily on the girl's attitude (the anthem Today Tomorrow Sometime Never, the vehement feminist harangue Give Her A Gun).
Preceded by the single Close But, the album On (550 Music, 1995) repeats the trick, but unsheathes a couple of blistering riffs (Car Fiction and King Of The Kerb) and the radiant folk-rock melody of Great Things (perhaps their masterpiece). Go Away exploits for the thousandth time the trick of a puerile chorus over galactic distortion, and from there on, the record is in a steep decline. The elaborate Dark Therapy tries in vain to build more courageous harmonies. This time the backbone is there: good songs are still missing.
(Original English text by Piero Scaruffi)
Lustra (Epic, 1998) marks a significant change of direction.
Bulldog Baby is so thickly and loudly orchestrated
(way beyond Phil Spector-ian
excesses) that the vocals matter very little. The crooning on this song and
Here Comes the Big Rush resembles
Bjork's (for what it's worth).
The guitar screams obnoxious over the Nico-ish refrain of I'm Not A Saint
but does add a bit of Pretenders-ian verve
to The World Is Flat.
A cello rescues Paradise from its Suede-ish
anguish.
There are no catchy hooks and not even the slightest sign of songwriting.
These are just generic melodies that the producer desperately tried to bury
under the amplification.
I Cant Imagine The World Without Me is a greatest-hits collection.
They later released the albums:
People Are Expensive
(2001),
Gravity Pulls
(2004),
Anarchy and Alchemy
(2017).
