ODE TO ECHO

My initial impression of 'Ode to Echo' was that I was a bit disappointed. There seemed to be less melody, less beauty and less passion than previous albums, and more what sounds to me as progginess just for the sake of sounding proggy rather than clear compositional direction. However, the album was new and like other GH albums, the music opened up to me with repeated listens. Yet the feeling of satisfaction that swept me with previous albums isn't quite there with me on this one, save for the glorious first two songs, 'Garden of Hedon', and 'Misantrog'. These tracks are fantastic, and I thought would set the stage for another near masterpiece. But then tracks like 'I Am I' just don't do it for me. To be fair, I do like most of the songs, and the fact that the band seems to break new ground on this album. Songs such as 'Pangegyric', and the albums closer, 'Ozymandias' are pretty cool, as well. I guess I expected more than pretty cool from the albums closer though. I also much prefer Jon Davison's vocals, and he mostly takes a backseat to Carl Groves, whose vocals to me are pretty good, but somewhat forgettable. So overall a solid 3 and a half stars at this time.