Adam Lempel and the Heartbeats :: "Echo"

Sounding loads like A.C. Newman and the New Pornographers, Adam Lempel, the brains of the band, Weekends, spins a bit of solo brilliance on "Echo". Soliciting vocals from Amanda Glasser, here playing the moral-authority-Neko-Case-role, "Echo" spins over a cello-drenched arrangement, engineering the effect of the title lyric, "like an echo, I follow you around". Perhaps comfortable with a modicum of obsession, or maybe with its mutuality as Lempel and Glasser sing to each other in duet down the back stretch, "Echo" rings as dully sweet, not certainly creepy.