Echodrone’s “Winter” Sounds Like the Cycle and Aftermath of a 500-Year Blizzard

Echodrone3_lg — Echodrone, image courtesy the band

Echodrone’s colossal “Winter” eases in with sounds like the albatross fleeing a coming storm that is bleeding over the horizon like a dark outline. And with a minimal guitar line like the early flutter of snow before the blizzard the song comes rolling in gradually but with great force. The percussion hits with a staggered cadence as the musical storm builds in pitch, tone and intensity. A soaring keyboard melody keeps the pace and conveys an end of the world sense like the category five hurricane of snowfall. But the momentum drops out six minutes in and lonely guitar and a cymbal figure trace the sunrise and the calm of the blanketed/blighted landscape and suggesting a stark beauty filled with hope that worst is over. Triumphant passages of sound replace that calm and collapse into cacophony like massive structures of ice and snow cracking and crumbling in the heat of the late winter sun, yielding streams and the signs of the first new growth of the coming season. At this point vocals enter the song over twelve minutes in striking chords paradoxical chords of joy and melancholy. The song ends with its most experimental soundscaping in minimal synth figures and echoing guitar sounds bouncing back in reverse. If the song isn’t supposed to be an expression of the cycle of winter or a cycle of life it surely takes you through some changes without sacrificing a respectable level of sustained thematic continuity without ever getting stuck in a rut. The sing is part of the the group’s new full-length Everything Starts out September 10, 2019 on Dome A Records. Listen to “Winter” on Soundcloud and follow Echodrone at the links below.