[Insert pithy comment here]
Artiste: Emissary Echo
Nationality: American
Album: Erasing the negatives
Year: 2015
Label:
Genre: Hard Rock
Tracks:
Pushed down
Run away
Infected
Frail
Vengeance
Face me
Erased
Defend
Let go
Chronological position: Debut album
Familiarity: Zero
Interesting factoid: Five days before the album release their vocalist quit the band.
Initial impression: Good hard-rockin’ opening, almost more on the side of heavy metal than rock really.
Best track(s): Infected, Frail, Vengeance, Face me, Erased
Worst track(s): Nothing really bad,
per se.
Comments: The album title may be positive, sure, but what has the band name got to do with it? Emissary echo? Weird. Anyway they hail from North Dakota and as I mentioned above have just lost their vocalist, leaving them as, at present, a four-piece, though the singer in question, Korey Lee, does feature on this album. It’s quite short really, only nine tracks, the first one a good uptempo thumper, with the vocalist reminding me of Daughtry maybe. Hard, grinding guitars, pounding percussion, decent melodies but I’m not blown away just yet. Second track is … okay. Still not seeing anything that groundbreaking or impressive. Standard rock, nothing special. “Infected” has a nice echoey guitar line and moves a little away from the banal and the expected; it’s quite decent really. “Frail” is good too, but just that. I still have not heard anything that has made me sit up and really take notice.
There’s a nice hard bite to “Vengeance”, some good guitar work there, while “Face me” has a very catchy melody; could see that as a single maybe. A sense of progressive metal about “Erased”, possibly one of my favourites on the album, lot of passion and frustration in the song. One of Lee’s best vocal performances yet. Yeah, “Defend” is really good too, great hook in the chorus. The final track begins on an unexpected acoustic line but then punches up into another rock anthem, perhaps a pity as it could have been more than just a generic rock song.
Overall impression: Not bad, not bad. But I don’t get the gushing enthusiasm for them I’ve read from other reviewers, basically citing them as the saviours of rock. Don’t see it. They’re okay, but that’s about it.
Hum Factor: 5
Surprise Factor: 4
Intention: Meh. Nothing else to listen to as this is their debut, but I won’t be their emissary just yet.