Gracepoint: Echoes

More than fifteen years have passed since Minnesota outfit Gracepoint delivered their debut outing, Science Of Discontent. What's happened since I'm not so sure, but with Echoes landing earlier this year, we finally have the second helping of the band. As you'd expect, "Animal" roars this album into life, glistening riffs dripping with intent as time changes and ever altering moods whizz past. Singer Matt Tennessen possesses a mighty set of lungs, a snarling powerful delivery backed up by the ability to hold deep, resonating notes for a lengthy time. "Spider" confirms initial impressions that what we're dealing with here is progressive thrash, a hugely technical approach given a hefty boot of power and intent – and damn convincing it is too.

Cleverly "Secrets" changes focus entirely, bassist Sam Van Moer and guitarists Lon Kunze and Stefan Radzilowski combining quite superbly on a restrained, beautiful, yet complex instrumental that wouldn't be a million miles out of place on a Joe Satriani album. Special mention too goes to drummer Lance Reed (who is credited under "original drums", while Justin Koch is credited as "drums", so I'm guessing it's Reed we're listening to and Koch now owns the drum stool in the band…?), who handles all the aspects Gracepoint want to get across with a real sense of ease and confidence.

From here things seem to take a left turn, the power and angst of the earlier cuts replaced by a more progressive Creed like crawl, "Full Circle", "Somber" and "Crucible", while still enjoyable, lacking the punch the opening cuts suggested. Tennessen remains impressive and yet with a less colourful backing, even his approach seems somewhat dulled. The semi-acoustic "Bittersweet" changes the mind set once more, however with the closing three tracks happy to stay patient and considered, the early momentum Echoes undoubtedly built up is allowed to fade away all too easily.

After being away for over a decade and a half and with only one previous album under their belt, it's almost fair to suggest Echoes is a second debut for Gracepoint. In that light, there's much here to get excited about, but not quite enough to suggest this band have really found their groove. Hopefully any future albums will play to Gracepoint's aggressive, bullish strengths. If they do, I'll be most intrigued to hear the results. If however they choose to concentrate on the more plodding morose style that the majority of this album relies on, then I'm not sure there'd be enough to hold the interest.

Track Listing
1. Animal
2. Spider
3. Secrets
4. Full Circle
5. Somber
6. Crucible
7. Bittersweet
8. July 4
9. Echoes
10. Moon

Added: June 26th 2016
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Gracepoint on bandcamp
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Language: english

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