Product Description

'Pieces Of The People We Love' is the follow-up to The Rapture's critically acclaimed 2003 debut, 'Echoes'. Written over the past year during breaks in the band's gruelling touring schedule, this latest offering is a more mature and thoughtfully crafted record, yet still manages to retain the band's enormous sense of fun. Produced by Paul Epworth, Ewan Pearson and Danger Mouse, 'Pieces Of The People We Love' includes the single 'Get Myself Into It'.

Track Listing

1. Don Gon Do It
2. Pieces Of The People We Love
3. Get Myself Into It
4. First Gear
5. The Devil
6. Whoo! Alright - Yeah...Uh Huh.
7. Calling Me
8. Down For So Long
9. The Sound
10. Live In Sunshine
11. Web Link

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1830 in Music
• Released on: 2006-09-18
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced
• Running time: 44 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
For their second album, Pieces of the People We Love, the Rapture once again prove that nobody does British dance-rock better than these four young men from Brooklyn. If anything, Pieces... takes their disco-punk hybrid even farther than their 2003 debut, Echoes, with tracks like "Don Gon Do It" and "First Gear" sounding like a cheekier and more cheerful Primal Scream. The Rapture have a reputation as a great live band, and this album was recorded during breaks in their touring schedule--as a result, Pieces... doesn't have the same coherence as their last album. But in no way is this a criticism. Instead, their second album seems to be separated into different themes. And so, the title track and "The Devil" sound like the later (and better-produced) New Wave songs of the 1980s, while first single "Get Myself Into It" and "Whoo! Alright - Yeah... Uh-huh" are shameless electro / disco tracks. Most surprisingly, however, are two of the songs tucked towards the end of the album: "Down for So Long" has a long, slow build-up into a song that could have come off of U2's Achtung Baby or even Zooropa, and this segues perfectly into the Edge-like guitar intro of "The Sound". It's a bold move for a hip, young band, and it suggests that stadium greatness is just in reach for the Rapture. --Ted Kord

Customer Reviews

Love the Rapture
Danger Mouse is evil! How dare he currupt a sick party band! The other rapture records really stand up however this struggles a bit. I can apreciate how they came to record this album and look forward to them moving on, thanks!

Not as good as Echoes
There's a polish to this album that wasn't present on Echoes, though I don't think that in this sense, it is terribly flattering. If I'm honest, what attracted me to Echoes was the unevenness, the jagged edges. Echoes was full of energy, and in comparison, Pieces of People we Love feels like that energy has been tamed. The vocals on Echoes were strangled, shrieking, the instruments occasionally head-ache inducingly sharp and uneven. There is no House of Jealous Lovers or I Need Your Love on this album.

But it is still well worth a listen to. On the basis of this album alone, The Rapture is still head and shoulders above boring also-rans like The Bravery. In relation to the previous album, much of the tunes follow the template set by the track Sister Saviour; well produced electro-pop, like an updated version of Depeche Mode. There's still an edge here and there in the album, but largely this is an album more suitable for mainstream consumption.

En-Rapture-D
This, my Amazon-review reading friends, is a real contender for record of the year. That accolade was something lacked by debut, `Echoes' which had some very strong tracks including one of the singles of the new millennium `House of Jealous Lovers'. As a coherent album though, `Echoes' was too full of peaks and troughs, it wasn't even the best album of it's type that year...(Radio 4's `Gotham!' took that honour for me)

Fast forward 3 years, and the NY quartet return with `Pieces of the People We Love'. It sounds straight away like the album `Echoes' should have been. A much more coherent, consistent record than it's predecessor, `Pieces...' in turns prowls, screams, caresses and exhilarates. In some ways, too, it's a much more British album. `Calling Me' has Chemical Brother-esque breakbeats, and there are Gang of Four and PiL references scattered all over the place. There's even hints of British glam in the cracking title track.

I suppose you could argue that there whole ethos is based in the British post-punk sound, but `Echoes' was so New York (DFA's influence?) that this sounds like an entirely different beast. The killer dance tracks are still there, `Get Myself Into It', complete with gratuitous swearing, is the lead-off, insanely catchy single. The infamous cowbell-craziness is in effect on the wonderfully titled `Whoo! Alright Yeah...Uh Huh' and that's as close as it gets to being `Echoes'-type Rapture.

From there-on, the sound is almost melancholy. The two closers, `The Sound' and `Live In Sunshine' are moving, grown-up, fully realised songs and represent just how far The Rapture have come, sonically. In fact, I think `Live In Sunshine' could be the greatest song they have written yet...

This is the first album to receive a five star review from me, and it's fully deserved. This makes a mockery of `second album difficulties' and is one of those rare albums where not one track is skippable. `Echoes' was the kind of album that soundtracked Saturday nights up and down the land. `Pieces...' upholds that, but it goes a bit further...almost taking the night through to comedown. Superb.