Published: August 25, 2020

Wills Dissolve have been in existence in Houston, Texas since 2015. In their 5 years together Wills Dissolve have made quite a bit of noise; their 2018 debut The Heavens Are Not On Fire was incredibly well received. The bands blend of Death Metal and Prog as well as the deeply intelligent nature of the albums subject matter and lyrics (based around the 1833 Leonid meteor shower, and how this affected people's religious beliefs) won them a lot of fans. The album garnered lots of excellent reviews (including from Musipedia Of Metal, we gave the album 9/10) and in some ways made a rod for their own backs, as this their second album now has huge expectations attached to it. Have the 4 piece, made up of Shaun Weller on Bass, Branson Heinz on Drums, Nick Block on Guitar and Vocals and Andrew Curuana also on Guitar and vocals, lived up to the promise that The Heavens Are Not On Fire suggested? 

 

Echoes is a beautifully avant-guard, creative piece of work. The band were clearly aware of the expectation that was felt for their next album, and decided that playing it safe was not an option. Echoes is a single, 32 minute song that tells a story about the loneliness and sacrifice of interstellar space travel. The audience follows the thoughts and fears of one of the astronauts aboard Nebula-8, as they search for a new planet for humans to live on, after making planet earth uninhabitable. So, in many ways continuing some of the themes the band explored on The Heavens Are Not On Fire. This interstellar space theme is also expressed through the amazing cover art by Adam Burke, which is stunning and will look ridiculously good on vinyl. 

Musically, Echoes is very complex. A 32 minutes song will have to have a certain amount of complexity or it will get boring, and this is something Echoes excels at. The track starts slowly, but after a few minutes of keyboard swells, clean guitar parts and a spoken word part from the astronaut who is narrating the story, Wills Dissolve drop the audience into the main part of the song, which feels as if it is constantly changing and in flux. There are several different styles of Music on offer during the song, this is coupled with 2 main voices, one harsh and one clean. The harsh voice is Nick Block, the clean voice is Andrew Curuana, both are great but Andrew’s clean voice is one of best used in metal at the moment. To this we can add a heavily processed voice and in the last third of the track the band are joined by a guest vocalist in Damian Smith from the amazing Alters Of Grief, this gives the band lots of different vocal flavours to add to their very versatile musical styles. 

So the different vocal styles help to make this feel diverse and varied when coupled with different musical styles. Once Echoes gets properly underway the changes between sections come thick and fast, nothing stays for very long before another feel comes along to change how the track seems. There are several parts that feel very Post Metal; very clean guitar parts with clean vocals over the top. There are many places where the track is progressive Death Metal in a way that is similar to Opeth. In other places the Death Metal feels more savage and nasty in a fairly technical Death Metal way. In other places the band sounds more like a Heavy Doom band, in places sounding more like Yob or Pallbearer than any kind of Death Metal. The doomy sections near the end of the track have Damian Smiths vocals from Alters Of Grief on them, and these parts are fantastic. 

Echoes is a stunning album! A beautifully original, innovative and visionary album. It’s very complex and is constantly changing, but at the same time hangs together and feels like a coherent whole. The transitions between sections, sometimes disparate sections, all feel totally natural and don’t seem forced, this is a clever trick to pull off, and Wills Dissolve pull it off brilliantly. The Heavens Are Not On Fire had a huge amount of promise; Wills Dissolve are a band that keep their promises, Echoes does not just live up to the expectations that were placed on Wills Dissolve, Echoes goes so much further, and in years to come will be considered a classic.