Review: Echoes and Signals – Lunar

Style: Progressive Metal, Progressive Rock (clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Porcupine Tree, Riverside, Anathema, Soen
Review by: Doug
Country: Russia
Release date: 20 April, 2023

Founded by singer, guitarist, and keyboardist Fedor Kivokurtsev, Echoes and Signals boast a widely varied past discography connected mainly by beautiful and surreal cover artwork, each album departing musically in some way from what defined the one before. I came into this album familiar with the band – carried by songs like “Broken Machine” and “Tower,” their previous release Mercurial offered some of the best heavy prog rock I’ve heard in years. Lunar, of course, brings with it another shift in style. Its lighter and more ghostly tone offers less contrast than some of Kivokurtsev’s prior adjustments, but nevertheless the new features shape this album into a distinct experience from all its predecessors.

The first two full-length tracks “The Witching Hour” and “Lunar” quickly highlight what works and what doesn’t in this new approach. The former song constructs an ethereal curtain around itself, stirred gently by the rising and falling of its phrases; the latter flounders amidst repetitive and aimless motifs punctuated occasionally by synth lines that sound like tension-mounting stings from a corny ‘70s sci-fi series with only a budget for paper-mâché and food dye (and I should know, I’ve watched every episode of Doctor Who). Although “The Witching Hour” never quite matches the tight-strung intensity that drew me so strongly to Mercurial, it does effectively demonstrate what Lunar offers with its new approach – more mystery, more subtlety, and more synth to surround the audience in chilled, ghostly atmosphere like a musical fog machine.

“The Witching Hour” is not the only successful showing of Echoes and Signals’s new style – “Mana” and “Gravity” both expand upon it in longer form – but unfortunately the rest of the album follows the title track’s shaky lead more than it sticks to what works. Nearly every song wallows here or there in phrases and riffs that repeat too much; any given line may start from a good idea, but few of them improve with more use. At least for me personally, this strengthens the link to Porcupine Tree, though not in a good way: I find that PT run afoul of similar bouts of repetitive composition, and for both bands it hampers their development of mood and expression of message, while others among their genre peers (Riverside, for one) consistently deepen the listener’s experience with precise pacing and musical development.

Where the music’s mood is driven by dark, pulsing bass and rhythm guitar rather than high and bright chords from the synth or lead guitar, its presentation is much more effective. In these moments, even the semi-cheesy synth warbling finds a home, fully embracing its ghostly timbre and inheriting the weight of the rhythm parts being played underneath instead of being trapped in the clichéd legacy of late-20th-century instrumental fads. The frantic 11/8 intro and initial buildup of “Cinders” shows off all the precise, technical execution and emotionally evocative finesse that first impressed me from Echoes and Signals – only for it to be squandered as the second half shifts to syncopated yet clunky 4/4 time with too many different aesthetics fighting for center stage. Like most of the disappointing moments throughout the album, that back section is catchy, but not as lasting and substantial in its impact as I know this artist can achieve.

Experimentation allows evolution, and Echoes and Signals are no strangers to either. This latest evolution shows promise, hanging onto a partial core of what succeeded before, but doesn’t integrate the newest experimental elements well enough to repeat the same success. In too many places to list, what starts as a promising development gets bogged down in generic cycles that spin in place, shedding all their built-up momentum and leaving the audience listening to almost as much noise as signal.

Recommended tracks: The Witching Hour, Mana, Gravity
You may also like: Sisare, Hillward, Derev
Final verdict: 6/10

Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Official Website | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram
Label: Independent

Echoes and Signals is:
– Fedor Kivokurtsev (vocals, guitars, keyboards)
– Alexey Zaytsev (bass)
– Alexander Kulkov (drums)