MEI

What a fantastic album. Thanks to a couple of suggestions from my fellow PA members I opted to check out echolyn and I haven't been disappointed, at least not with mei. If I may, I invite the rest of you to go check this album out too.

Mei is a single epic track clocking in just seconds shorter than fifty minutes. Over its course you are sent on a winding musical journey. What you're listening to at minute fifteen probably won't have too much to do with minute thirty. There are a few parts which will reappear again at later stage, but it all fits in with the whole work. Don't let the album cover fool you, mei's overall sound is fairly bright and energetic. It does have some darker and/or slower spots too. What else would you expect from a "progressive epic?"

My favourite parts tend to be in the early going; especially the soft introduction where in everything is "blue and green" and then when the foot first hits the gas pedal and things "fade away." Both parts couldn't really be any more different from one another, but that's what mei is about. It evolves continually. The changes in style, feel and tempo never feel abrupt and echolyn moves with seeming ease from one passage to the next.

The band also manages to keep consistently good. There are a few parts which I did not like as much as others, but nothing which compromises the album. I've decided on a four rather than a five mostly because there a few idiosyncrasies of echolyn's sound which don't agree with me fully, but that shouldn't turn you off the prospect listening to this album. If I was just ranking them on the boldness and talent displayed on the album it would be an easy five, but it is my review and I feel inclined to account for taste. I think even hard core echolyn fans wouldn't begrudge me when I say that their sound can be challenging at times.

mei, four stars out of five