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Echolyn - As The World

Artist: Echolyn
Title: As The World
Label: Cyclops 025
Length(s): 69 minutes
Year(s) of release: 1995
Month of review: 06/1995

Line up

Christopher Buzby - keyboards
Tom Hyatt - bass, midi pedals
Brett Kull - guitars, lead vocals
Paul Ramsey - drums and percussion
Ray Weston - lead vocals.
All save Ramsey backing vocals.

Tracks

1) All Ways The Same 0.36
2) As The World 4.50
3) Uncle 6.54
4) How Long Have I Waited 4.43
5) Best Regards 4.11
6) The Cheese Stands Alone 4.48

Letters:
7) Prose 1.45
8) A Short Essay 4.34
9) My Dear Wormwood 3.34
10) Entry 11.19.93 6.33
11) One For The Show 4.31
12) The Wiblet 0.47
13) Audio Verite/ 4.19
14) Settled Land 5.41
15) A Habit Worth Forming 4.24
16) Never The Same 7.54

Summary

Echolyn most people will be familiar with. I believe they went major with Sony, but still this album has been released in Europe on the relatively small label Cyclops. I have Suffocating and can remember that at the time I was impressed by it, because it was interesting from beginning to end, mostly due to the fact that they had their own sound. Now I have taken on an inspection of their latest (not that new anymore) album and here are the results of the Dutch jury:

The music

First of all: unfortunately no lyrics on this album, in contrast with Suffocating. On the latter the Gentle Giant reference was already to be heard, but to my surprise Gentle Giant is more present than ever on this new album.

All Ways the Same is GG in optima forma. The harmonies on this album do give an overall GG likeness and in this way it does seem that this is just another GG clone. Still, if you listen closely, the sound of Echolyn is heavier than GG, heavier also than their previous album, and sometimes the somewhat constrained vocals/harmonies are thankfully replaced by a more 'normal' vocals. This does help to prevent the music from becoming a morass of harmonies that it now sometimes becomes.

Overall not many differences with Suffocating, except that I feel the sound has become more 'busy' and thus more tiring for the listener (especially if it's 70 minutes, I mean those GG albums weren't short ust for the fun it). The nature of the music also reminds me of a band like Faith no More, in the sense that there's never a dull moment (or rather, never a chance to recapture what you've just heard, it just goes on).

The first resting place we get is in track 6, part of Letters. The song starts out quite relaxed, but the GG harmonies barge in again and this seems to stay that way all through Letters as well.

After this the music goes on, but it can't keep me really interested. Probably routine slipping in. This changes with the last track, which is a great singalong in the way that Memoirs from Between (from Suffocating) is.

Conclusion

A good album when you listen to the songs one at a time, but as a whole I think they've overdone it a bit, because after track 11, they couldn't keep me fascinated until I got to track 16 (which is rather like Memoirs from Between, which would have been a good closer as well). Can't really give a definite thumbs up for this one, because of this. I would have expected something even better than this. Still we have to remind ourselves that this is in fact a major release and it still stands out from other major releases in the progressive area: they did manage to maintain their integrity, but I'm not sure they can keep on surprising and/or maturing like they did with Suffocating.

Best tracks: As the World, The Cheese Stands Alone, Entry 11/19/93 and Never the Same.

© Jurriaan Hage