K's Choice - Echo Mountain
Monday, September 17, 2012 at 11:55AM
Time can be a heavy burden, particularly in the rekindling of the creative process. But twenty years after they first began writing and recording together and over a decade since their last album, the Belgian brother and sister team Gert and Sarah Bettens -- K's Choice -- are once again defying the odds. Their fifth and latest album Echo Mountain has already served notice of the band's reemergence on the international stage and will finally reach American shores September 18. It's also one of their very best, a reminder that crisp, uncluttered songs with rich melodies and sublime harmonies can still wield a razor-sharp edge. There is, after all, a good reason songwriters still call them "hooks". Sarah talks of the "two different worlds" that came together for Echo Mountain, a reference not only to the geographic split -- she lives in the U.S., Gert in Europe -- but also to the stylistic dichotomy that one astute scribe referred to as the "Lilith Fair vs. Lollapalooza" elements of their albums, lush folk/pop comingling with bristling alt/rock. The tightly coiled "Come Live The Life" exemplifies the K's Choice mantra, a new-wavish, near-perfect power-pop song that is, as it should be, equal parts power and pop.
K's Choice - "Come Live The Life" (from Echo Mountain)
K's Choice - "Echo Mountain" (from Echo Mountain)
Reader Comments (1)
I so prefer the acoustic version of Come Live the Life. I can hear the words, I can hear the guitars, I can hear the richness of their voices, I can hear the emotional undercurrent -- without distraction. These two are related and they sound related. Their blend is great and they have obviously spent many hours getting in sync with each other. They don't need to gild the lily.
Sometimes less is all you need. Just sayin'.