Ahhhh…high-pitched whiney voices belting out pop songs with angst (don’t get me wrong – I like a lot of them!). There is no shortage of pop punk bands (ala Bowling for Soup, Fall Out Boy, or New Found Glory) vying for our ears and dollars these days, so to be competitive you really have to stand out. Echo Screen has been striving since 2003 to make their mark on the genre. Their latest offering surfaced in 2006, entitled “Euphoria.”
With only two songs in, I was beginning to believe Echo Screen could run with the best of them. Shaune Scutellaro sounds a lot like vocalists from Sugarcult and Flickerstick, and I hear a lot of All American Rejects and Denver Harbor coming through in their tunes. The CD sounds amazing…no surprise since it was produced by Shep Goodman (who’s worked with a wide range of artists, from From Autumn to Ashes to (argh!) Jordan Knight). Not too shabby to land a guy like Shep for your debut (full-length) CD! And it paid off – sonically, “Euphoria” stands toe to toe with the competition.
Echo Screen storm into your ears with two adrenaline filled tracks, “This Letter Bomb” and “Everything after Bradford”, that are rich with punk angst yet keep pop sensibilities in the foreground. “The Science of Stopping Time” is OK, saved by a memorable hook in the chorus. “Start Tomorrow” keeps things interesting with lots of cool breaks interspersed between an infectious melody – very difficult to pull off, but well done. Even when the group slows it down, like they do for “October,” they maintain an intensity in their music that truly makes you feel the band’s raw emotion. "October" is a highlight on the CD, perhaps one of the greatest songs Dashboard Confessional) never wrote.
But after this run of outstanding tunes, the momentum begins to slip and enthusiasm dampens. The rest of the disc feels a bit forced, with a lack of attention on constructing the all-important hook that is going to make the listener want to hit “replay” again and again. I applaud them for the consistent sound from start to finish, but the lackluster songwriting makes the last half of the CD fade into the background.
It is unclear to me what is currently going on with Echo Screen. The record company has collapsed and some personnel changes have taken place…but the band may be recording new stuff. According to Absolute Punk, “Echo Screen will be heading into the studio to record a few demos as well as a cover for an upcoming Tom Petty tribute album”. Tom Petty? Covering something off their 1999 "Echo" CD, perhaps? Anyway, check out Echo Screen's MySpace page below for up-to-date details.
iPOD-worthy: 1, 2, 3, 4, 6
Echo Screen on MySpace.
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