Review Summary: Melancholy's third testament
Among the Indie-Rock powerhouses that dominate the Bandcamp landscape, few are as versatile and inventive as Echo Tail. Since debuting with
Mirroring in 2014, Echo Tail have bombarded listeners with a multitude of Rock subgenre's from Drone to Shoegaze. However, it wasn't until
Drowning the Pacific that the band really began what I call "The Melancholy Series"; a series of albums dealing with more somber topics and rougher instrumentation. The band would return to this style in the similarly rough but subdued
Beauty in Denial. With
A Brief Escape From Life, Echo Tail are continuing the trend, but this time, with their arms firmly planted in Noise country.
Granted, the band themselves are no stranger to Noise, but it is here in
A Brief Escape From Life that the brotherly duo of Tom and Mark Stebbing no longer use the genre as an aesthetic. The opening track
Tessaiga Aurora clocks in at over seven minutes, but the final two are steeped in rough digital patchwork and noises with no vocals. Then there are more aggressive songs like
Existence which utilize enough distortion to give William Bennett a hangover all while a female voice repeats "I want to exist" over and over again. Of the Noise tracks however, none compare to
Dilation. The tune starts off soft, but quickly erupts into a droning guitar and heavy distortion. Towards the end of the track, the distortion and feedback get louder and more intense until unceremoniously ending. It is in these tracks, that Echo Tail unleash the depressing void of emotion, pulling out lyrics of fear and lost hope, with
Tessaiga Aurora being a prime example:
My fears have all come true
the nerves have settled in
once you know that things wont change
you just get used to it
One of the finest aspects of this album is in it's variety of tone, yet it's consistency of theme. Tracks like
Umbra are much more upbeat in it's pitch and tempo, but still contain the same drone aspects that seep into the rest of the album. Credit must be given to the drumming of Tom Stebbing, with songs like
Kako mo naku mirai mo nai (No past no future) containing a pulsating, primal percussion sound straight out of the Meg White playbook. The same song also contains some of the best vocals from Mark Stebbing. It can be said that, although
Drowning the Pacific is a near-masterpiece, Mark's vocals on said album definitely needed a bit of a touch up. As this album has shown, Mark has clearly been training. He can reverb his voice better, and his crescendos ease up and down without much breaking.
Of course, there are two specific tunes that outshine all the others on the album.
Tired of Being Tired is a Noise Rock power play with a slow but aggressive tempo, as Tom unloads on his cymbals with absolute force, giving the cymbals just as much attention as the drums. This is an underrated practice that few drummers take advantage of, with many of the more famous percussionists driving attention away from the cymbals in order to create more clear beats. To top it off is the Heavy Metal ballad
Under the Shade which abandons most of the distortion and noise for harder riffs and a fiery tempo.
A Brief Escape From Life is a deliberate lie on the part of the Stebbing brothers. The title beckons us with talk of escapism, but as the actual music and lyrics show, there is no real escape from life. No matter what you do or how you do it, you can only pretend it doesn't exist for so long until you lose your imagination or end up in a mental ward. However, if you can't take my word for it, then take Mark's instead from
Under the Shade:
You're circling patiently
hoping for what's left of me
The shelter that's housing fear
its not what its supposed to be
Its easy to give in
Its easy to give in now
When you are alone in here
I am broken and out of place
Sometimes it gets harder to breathe
But I'm here with all I can trust
I am under the shade now
With
A Brief Escape From Life, Echo Tail have crafted another near masterpiece almost on par with
Drowning the Pacific, and continues their exploration into the shadow side of the human psyche.
Drowning the Pacific was an old dog showing us his best tricks,
Beauty in Denial was that same dog trying to learn new tricks, and
A Brief Escape From Life was said dog performing these new tricks for all to see within a circus of sadness.
Truly, this is melancholy's third testament.
