Published: August 27, 2020

This is the second album from Wills Dissolve, a progressive metal band from the US.

Wills Dissolve play a multigenre form of progressive metal that takes in a range of other styles and subgenres. Progressive black/death metal, post-metal, ambient, doom metal, and progressive rock are all included in Echoes, and all get their moments to shine. The album consists of a single 32-minute track. It’s a future-themed extreme progressive metal exploration of sci-fi waters that is as well-crafted as it is enjoyable.

This is a complex piece that’s rich in depth of content. The breadth of influences that went into the creation of Echoes could easily have resulted in something unwieldy, but the clear talent of the band means that the material is both coherent and focused, while also being diverse and multifaceted. If you were to throw Opeth, Wilderun, Ihsahn, Rush, Yes, Isis, Ne Obliviscaris, and even a touch of Arcturus into a blender, and it miraculously didn’t sound like an awful mess, (quite the opposite in fact), then you might not end up with something too far away from Echoes.

The enviable skills of the band members have produced an album filled with emotion and atmosphere, but one that also has the bite of the truly heavy when it needs to. Ranging frequently from light ambient introspection to harsh brutal violence, this lengthy song is a real journey into Wills Dissolve’s universe.

Echoes is a very rewarding album, offering the listener something quite satisfying to explore. Check it out.