THE TIDE DECIDES

This sophomore effort from US act Echo Us is a creation that will twist many heads for sure.

Mysterious, twisted and unexpected - in a varity of unusual ways. The production is smooth and careful, dissonances and disharmonies are nowhere to be found, and ambient passages does fill up quite a lot of playtime here.

But the good old harp and the violin does add a few unusual touches, while vocalist Ethan has a voice pretty identical to the guy that used to sing in Frankie Goes to Hollywood. Add in brief passages that musically sounds just like this act if they had a violinist and harp player onboard, a few select metal-inspired bursts as well as eastern-tinged keyboards and percussion layers coming and going and you might just start getting a feel for this album. Oh, and quite a few passages with spoken words as well.

Shifty, quirky and challenging stuff - but in a wildly different manner than most anything given such descriptions previously from my meagre knowledge. And well worth investigating if you fancy something unusual - or does find the above description intriguing.