Volume 1

Mojo - "...An unpredictable 45-minute journey in sound. And it's an alluring trip....The instrumentals, which dominate, are more seductive than the songs..." NME - 8 out of 10 - "...A heartful of great tunes...the avant-pop maverick still ranks high in the league of bloody good music..." CMJ - "...His constructions have the lush, repetitive detail of progressive electronica, and when they let go of the songwriter's impulse toward brevity, they stretch out and billow." Q - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Clearly a man of sound judgement. Certainly, it's a quality highly apparent in the guitar-heavy electronica of [this album]. By turns soothing and jarring, the tone suggests Death In Vegas with the neurosis replaced by a mood of ennui..." Alternative Press - 3 out of 5 - "...Layers of Muzak concrFte, radio waves and electronic bubblings announce Echoboy's U.S. debut....[He] speaks of Dylan, Television, Kraftwerk and Chemical Brothers as the best of their times and wishes this litany to bleed into his work..." Magnet - "...Warren's pop is textured, but with a supernatural edge....'Kit and Holly' is the best song here, with its burp-and-pop drum machine synthed over in roller-rink shimmer....Someone's got a fuzzbox, and he's gonna use it."

It's easy to see why Noel Gallagher wanted Richard Warren, aka Echoboy, to join Oasis. Echoboy's love of sounds, both experimental and pop, are evident throughout Volume One. "55" and "Model 352" are the work of a sound chemist, the first song a dark, percolating dirge, the latter a noisy, cluttered track awash in all sorts of sound effects. "Kit and Holly" displays the pop side of Echoboy's interests, sounding like a long lost classic from Echo & the Bunnymen, or Love and Rockets finally getting its electronic post-Earth, Sun, Moon wanderings right. When compared to the rest of the album, "Walking" is another somewhat traditional song; it ends before it really gets going, but does display fine pop musicianship and the fragile, pretty vocals of Tasha Lee McLuney. You'd think that there's an entire album's worth of similar pop gems in Echoboy's head, but the album leans toward his more experimental interests. That's not to say that songs like "Broken Hearts" aren't beautiful and accessible in their own right. Perhaps that's the heart of Echoboy; he mixes equal amounts of ambient shoegazing loveliness, dollops of pop charm, and some truly fierce electronic experimentation. This really isn't an album for the casual listener; the squalls that develop out of gentle ambience on "Constantinople" will perhaps turn off listeners drawn in by "Kit and Holly." One thing that's quite evident is that Volume One isn't made for fans of any one particular genre of music or even for listeners at all; the album is the sound of Echoboy exploring his own interests and making uncompromising modern music. It's certainly an eclectic, winning ride, if a tiny bit unfocused. ~ Tim DiGravina|