Review Summary: Hold the Throne is a really nice mix of crisp timing and sensitive performance. The mix has great clarity but is not overproduced, though there are occasional choices that I found to be ineffective musically. Mature composition makes it a cohesive packa
Hold the Throne is the third release by Echo Tail – impressive considering the first release occurred in August of 2014. This album is my introduction to this group, which currently consists of two brothers, Mark and Tom Stebbing, though previous releases were performed and mixed by Mark alone.
I first listened to this album several weeks ago, and I enjoyed it then. However, I could not have predicted how much that enjoyment would grow upon further listening. Each time I hear this music, I like it more. The composition displays a remarkable maturity and sense of atmosphere, with slow riffs reminiscent of Anathema and Type O Negative, but applied differently. The timing is impeccable.
Overall, this album has a surprisingly unobtrusive quality to it. I am able to listen to it in the background while doing just about any task, and find that not only can I do both things at once, but the music actually heightens my experience of everything else I do. Most music fights tasks for my concentration, no matter how much I love the sound itself. Not so here. I attribute this partially to its instrumental nature, but also to its excellent cohesiveness. Each individual track feels like an expertly placed movement in one large work. I do not experience the tracks as songs – I experience one long, and very enjoyable, song. Mark’s guitar sings. Tom’s drumming, where present, is refreshingly crisp and apt. There are some nice little nuances in the interplay between the two that made me sit up and listen closely – there’s a certain amount of simplicity in the music overall but there are split-second details that hooked me way in. This doesn’t sound like two people just playing a song together – they seem completely attuned to each other. My complaints about this album are relatively minor – I’ll talk about those at the end.
“Tudor Rose” is a strong album opener with hints of an Alice-in-Chains/Bush-like grunginess. The crunchy style gives way to a gentleness that makes the atmospheric quality of the music apparent right away.
“Angelican Dreams” is a thoughtful track, but in my opinion one of the weakest points on the album, due in part to the stand-out electronic claps. I’d like to hear a version of this with those toned way down. It would still be somewhat uneventful, but a quiet track here and there is okay – the loud clap just pops the quiet balloon for me.
“Divisions” – Beautiful, uplifting, atmospheric and strong. I can’t listen to this one without moving some appendage to the music. If it reminds me of anything, oddly, it’s parts of the soundtrack to a video game: Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core.
“Takamikura (Interlude I)” – This short track is the lowest point on the album for me, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s not the sort of thing I’d listen to on its own – but as what it is (an interlude), it serves its purpose.
“Imperium” features a moving and catchy melody. This is where I start to hear a shoegaze-type influence, something kind of like Tearwave but much more clear, not obscured behind multiple layers of reverb on everything.
“Is There Trust In Me?” takes the feel of “Imperium” and turns it melancholy. This is where Echo Tail shows a developed slow-riff sensibility. I’ve heard many similar attempts at a sound like this fall flat by slipping into a lazy repetition or tiresomely predictable chord structure – not so, here. Then it flows seamlessly into “False Dynasties,” in which the pace picks up with some metal-esque guitar crunching. Love the rhythmic nuances in this one.
“Usurper” begins with some gentle picking and simple strumming, then Mark develops yet another lovely melody line via guitar – this time closer to a clean sound. The drumming is so clean on this.
The 2nd interlude, “The Hunger,” is more interesting than the first. It varies more, and while it still features some electronic percussion way-out-front in the mix, it develops rather than remaining the same the whole way through. I thought it was aptly titled, as its massive build-up left that cuts off after so brief a time left me wanting more. But, as all the songs have done, this ending fits so well with the beginning of the final and title track, “Hold the Throne.” This is the longest track at 6:19 – not long for prog, but it cycles through and develops four distinct themes. Something in Tom’s drumming here reminds me of Stone Temple Pilots, particularly “Vasoline.” The song fades to silence, and if I then restart with “Tudor Rose” it seems to flow extremely well back into itself.
It’s a bit tough for me to pull out distinct qualities of some of these songs because there’s such a strong cohesive album quality. “Imperium” could just as easily have been part 5 of a ten-part song clocking in at 39 minutes and 57 seconds. But despite the fact that it all gels so well, the sameness is one of the issues I have with this album. These tracks all feel like they are part of each other, and the flow is great – except that it’s all a bit too similar. I wish I had something else afterward that went in a different direction. That would also have helped with another issue: the album feels short. “Hold the Throne” ends, and I’m waiting for the next thing to come on… and then it doesn’t. This isn’t the end of the world, and too long a running time is, in my opinion, much worse, but I’d have liked more variety.
Another thing that bugged me was the presence of long pauses between some of the tracks. I feel that a few seconds of silence could have been cleaned up here and there to make the transitions really seamless – would have made sense considering how well the songs fit together.
The other thing isn’t really a complaint. After all, Echo Tail announces itself as an instrumental progressive rock band right in the description, and that guitar does sing. That said, there are lots of places in here that seem to be begging for vocals over them. Slow, languid themes like some of those in here having me humming additional melodies to myself over them.
On the whole, Hold the Throne is a really nice mix of crisp timing and sensitive performance. The mix has great clarity but is not overproduced, though there are occasional choices that I found to be ineffective musically. Mature composition makes it a cohesive package of style and beauty. It may seem surprisingly short to prog fans, but I highly recommend it as a complete work of music. The potential for this group is clearly enormous – I’m excited for further releases.
