The Octopus Project - Hello Avalanche Album Review

The Octopus Project
Hello Avalanche
Album Review

The Octopus Project is a four-piece band from Austin, Texas who play a style known as 'indietronica' - a sound that relies heavily on thrashing guitars and a cacophony of instruments but also pulls in a (nicely cheesy) 80s electronic overlay. If you could imagine the Go Team! stripped of vocals, you'd get close -the songs are instrumental, but they achieve a giddy invigorating mix that knocks Of Montreal and I'm From Barcelona into a cocked hat.

Many contemporaries of The Octopus Project rely on their enthusiasm and novel mix to inject some pace into indie music in the middle of the '00s', and TOP are no different - the core of the band, Josh Lambert and Ryan Figg, who swap guitars, bass and keyboards, and Toto Miranda who thrashes percussion mercilessly, compete for attention with Yvonne Lambert and her synths and Theremins. But the sound needs that energy - without it, it could all drop into Stylophone muzak. With the energy, it makes a thrilling listen - imaginative, quirky and a whole lot of fun.

4.5/5

Mike Rea