Two years since the critically acclaimed ‘Octopus,’ Amplifier frontman Sel has spoken about their upcoming album – ‘Echo Street.’ This is band’s fourth album, and the first with the new look four-piece setup.
With the highly impressive sales of ‘Octopus,’ the band cut a deal with Kscope; offering them broad artistic freedom paired with the commercial access available to such a label.
Adding another member to the band has given them three-way vocals, opening new doors for their sound which has seldom stayed in one place. The vocals will now be shared between Sel, former ‘Oceansize’ man, Steve Durose (second guitar) and Alex “Magnum” Redhead (bass).
Sel: “I guess the people are going to be expecting something like a follow-up to The Octopus – but Echo Street isn’t like that at all. It’s important that people understand that not everything will be like what has gone before. I never want to repeat myself.” Nothing in life is completely black and white but if The Octopus was black, then Echo Street is white.
“Before I sort the sheep out into the order of the most beautiful. I like to put all the white ones over here and all the black ones over there. That’s a summary of my job – it’s a bit like being a rock shepherd”
Going in to more depth about the change in direction and the creative processes that went in to the production, Sel added: “I think the diversity on Echo Street is a strong feature. It’s quite like the first album in that respect. All the songs on the first album sound quite different to one another… But it was a really difficulty album to sequence. There wasn’t anything that was really obvious. So we decided to go with the time tested method of giving the listener a sustained boot in the face, before following up with a nice stroke on the back.”
“We had no idea what it was going to be when we started. The whole thing from starting to write it to actually having a finished master was 60 days. You need to put that in context with the fact that The Octopus took 4 years…”
“We are extraordinarily pleased with Echo Street. We didn’t think that we could better The Octopus, but I think that Echo Street has a timeless quality about it. It’s probably the Amplifier album that most people will know with time. There’s something really special about it…”
Click here for a free download of the new track ‘Matmos,’ from ‘Echo Street.’
Amplifier’s tour starts on the 16th of march. Full dates below:
TOUR DATES
16th March – 53 Degrees, PRESTON
17th March – The Fleece, BRISTOL
18th March – The Duchess, YORK
19th March – King Tut’s, GLASGOW
20th March – Rock City, NOTTINGHAM
21st March – The Garage, LONDON
