THE END IS BEAUTIFUL

If you expect that Echolyn - The End Is Beautiful will deliver another epic-like "Mei", then prepare to lower your expectation. TEIB is not concept-like typical symphonic prog as in Mei. TEIB tends to blend jazzier tune (Heavy Blue Miles,Lovesick Morning), swinging rock (Georgia Pine), to Symph Prog (Make Me Sway, Misery..). TEIB prolongs multiple verses of Echolyn albums all along. This ain't like retro-prog in As The World, or the AmericaProg in Cowboy Poems Free. This most recent effort is darker, heavier, sometimes giving you raw feeling of live like.

Georgia Pine - is swinging groove - driven by Paul Ramsey energetic drums, steered by Buzby's clavinet with his Hammond b3. You can expect this is great live opening. Next best section: at 03:05 - the music starts to turn into Kull's vocal tingling with background piano - slowly... melancholy..bluesy...and then back to the Hammond, with driving groove back to the fore.

Heavy Blue Miles starts as groovy rockin' number with synth, before it starts to mellow into a jazzier slower, with Sax in the background coming to the verse. Within the sax and B3 riffs lies the hypnotic refrain, "Love made me ill with lust". Or try this - "It's Ok, It's Ok - I'm not ok, I'm not ok". I actually feel this song could have developed more - by adding more sax/horns as additional layer of sound. This song is one highlight of the album - even as it is.

Other highlights of TEIB - "Make Me Sway" - which is also available as free download from their site. This is echolyn going back to "as the world", with great instrumental delivered.

Title track - The End Is Beautiful is hauntingly beautiful, bad pun intended! The lyric "Pain introduced us. I wanted someone i could hurt" is just so sadly melancholy sung by RW. This is one song you need to listen with lights off!

All in all - TEIB manage to put Echolyn as being consistently "progressing" - or at least - altering their deliveries from album to album to give us different flavor of their music. Don't get me wrong - you can immediately tell this is Echolyn. Their harmonic, beat, and chords progression are still there on the fore, just on a different plate.