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Amp, "L'Amour Invisible"
Space Age Recordings
Following up last year's compilation of live recordings, Richard,Karine and Olivier return with a brand-new studio album, this time withJan Zert in tow on a few tracks. 'L'Amour Invisible' kicks off with theimpressive and promising "Crazyhead," laiden with heavy trip hopovertones and offset by drones, sparse male vocals (Richard perhaps?)and Amp's signature dreamy bass throbs. The title track, which follows,features Karine's incredibly sexy French whispers (to the non-Frenchspeaker's ears, she could be reading a grocery list and it would stillsound sexy) in a framework of glitchy fragments. "Curious Smile" showsoff the more electronic leanings that Gauthier brings to the group.Although slightly reminiscent of the subdued electro-pop of DonnaRegina, such an approach is not always as conducive to Karine's voiceand Richard's organic elements. It seems to work well with tracks suchas "Crazyhead", and "It Ain't Easy", but not as well in other placessuch as this. "How Can We Be Sure" recalls Amp at their best: hypnoticand cavernous. Other tracks, on the other hand, like "Where Was When",are less interesting and rather forgettable. Or, like "Glasshouse Jam,"are pretty, but don't really go anywhere (but, it's admittedly a jam,so perhaps it needn't do so). 'L'Amour Invisible' finishes with"Junkyard Blues" and "Go" which are more spacy jams, followed by acontrasting bonus track: noisy and raw, with lots of feedback. Alloverthe album is not nearly as strong or gutsy as the brilliant'Stenorette', which Amp released in 1998. Gauthier's rhythm programmingis not as effective as it was on tracks like "Sunflower" or "You AreHere." The band's latest work is diverse but somehow notattention-grabbing—they seem to meander between different styles withfinding any cohesion. The more outstanding tracks from 'L'AmourInvisble' might have worked better as 7"s, such as the band releasedsteadily while still in their fledgling stage nearly 10 years ago.
Following up last year's compilation of live recordings, Richard,Karine and Olivier return with a brand-new studio album, this time withJan Zert in tow on a few tracks. 'L'Amour Invisible' kicks off with theimpressive and promising "Crazyhead," laiden with heavy trip hopovertones and offset by drones, sparse male vocals (Richard perhaps?)and Amp's signature dreamy bass throbs. The title track, which follows,features Karine's incredibly sexy French whispers (to the non-Frenchspeaker's ears, she could be reading a grocery list and it would stillsound sexy) in a framework of glitchy fragments. "Curious Smile" showsoff the more electronic leanings that Gauthier brings to the group.Although slightly reminiscent of the subdued electro-pop of DonnaRegina, such an approach is not always as conducive to Karine's voiceand Richard's organic elements. It seems to work well with tracks suchas "Crazyhead", and "It Ain't Easy", but not as well in other placessuch as this. "How Can We Be Sure" recalls Amp at their best: hypnoticand cavernous. Other tracks, on the other hand, like "Where Was When",are less interesting and rather forgettable. Or, like "Glasshouse Jam,"are pretty, but don't really go anywhere (but, it's admittedly a jam,so perhaps it needn't do so). 'L'Amour Invisible' finishes with"Junkyard Blues" and "Go" which are more spacy jams, followed by acontrasting bonus track: noisy and raw, with lots of feedback. Alloverthe album is not nearly as strong or gutsy as the brilliant'Stenorette', which Amp released in 1998. Gauthier's rhythm programmingis not as effective as it was on tracks like "Sunflower" or "You AreHere." The band's latest work is diverse but somehow notattention-grabbing—they seem to meander between different styles withfinding any cohesion. The more outstanding tracks from 'L'AmourInvisble' might have worked better as 7"s, such as the band releasedsteadily while still in their fledgling stage nearly 10 years ago.
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