Don't you love it when a band name perfectly describes the sound that they make? Consider The Echoing Green, a synthpop outfit that has become a bit of an underground favorite in Christian music over the years. Echoing is a darn good term for an electronica-based band, because such music tends to be painstakingly crafted, comprised of layers and dubs and other sonic trickery. The term denotes a computer-generated realm where even the most infinitesimal detail is not irrelevant. And yet, to counterbalance this cold, calculated imagery, we have the word Green. It's my favorite color, and a color generally not associated with technology or machinery. The word brings forth images of life, growth, healing. And those two words, when synthesized, describe the dichotomy that The Echoing Green is all about.

I've been a fan of the "group" since 1998. I put the word "group" in quotes because in those earlier days (I think their debut record was actually released in 1994), it was mostly just Joey Belville's creation, with guest vocalists, mixers, and remixes contributing a bit here and there. The one-man, strictly electronic approach worked well for Joey on the self-titled record, The Echoing Green, but not too long afterwards, he acquired a full-time female vocalist, a guitarist, and a drummer, and The Echoing Green re-emerged in band form on a different label for 2000's Supernova. I enjoyed that record, but I actually found it to be so densely produced at times that the more unique elements of the EG's techno-pop wizardry seemed to suffer for it. A few years later, after the dissolution of Red Hill Records (every label they sign to seems to go belly-up before they have a chance to put out a follow-up album!) and a string of unofficial indie releases later, the group has decided to release their fifth album of all-new material on their own label, A Different Drum Records. (Clever name, eh?) The new album, The Winter of Our Discontent, seems to be a return to the more strictly computerized approach of the self-titled album, while at the same time being a step forward for the group in terms of using mood and ambience to their advantage, and not relying as heavily on giving every song a peppy-major key hook for a chorus.

See, there's one thing that I simultaneously like and dislike about The Echoing Green, and that's their adherence to traditional pop song structure. You know, verse-chorus-verse-chorus, maybe a bridge. This was a huge blessing to me back when I first discovered the group, because my limited exposure to "techno" thus far had revealed little in the way of actual songs. I innocently assumed most of the genre was given to the mindless, redundant thumping of dance beats with maybe a simple lyric or two to be repeated ad nauseum. The years in between then and now have informed me that there are such genres as ambient and IDM (intelligent dance music) that seek to give the listener's brain a little more to latch onto for when they're not on the dance floor. So I won't herald The Echoing Green as dance music visionaries or anything. They basically use synthesized elements to make darn good dance-pop music - some lighter tunes, some darker tunes, the occasional instrumental, and of course the requisite 80's cover. (Joey Belville is apparently a huge fan of 80's new wave music.) And that's fine, because I wholeheartedly believe that making good pop music is an art, too. Critics who say otherwise have their heads a little too far up their own butts, in my not-so-humble opinion.

Having said that, there are a few occasions when The Echoing Green's testaments to healing and opening yourself up to feeling emotions again, set to bubbling keyboards and unabashed techno beats, can start to feel a bit routine. Perhaps realizing that, and also feeling liberated from the constraints of being signed to a "Christian" label, they've allowed themselves to explore darker themes of doubt and bitterness on this record, smartly applying more of a "darkwave" sound to a few songs (think Depeche Mode and you're sort of on the right track), which counterbalances the brighter tunes quite nicely. In fact, I find those songs to be the tastiest morsels on the record. Perhaps it's appropriate for an album named after the coldest season of the year, when all that is green struggles to break through in a barren landscape of snow and ice.

Daybreak
An ambient, keyboard-washed intro takes up about a minute and a half before the first song begins. The Echoing Green has opened albums in the past with a similar wash of sound (see "Supernova" and "The Power Cosmic"), but this is the first time I can recall where they set it apart as a separate track.

The Story of Our Lives
Take our hopes and hold them away
Chain them to the throes of yesterday
But the chains are getting tight...
Quick, bubbly synths lead off what develops into a fairly traditional techno track, getting fans up to speed with the band they've come to know and love. It's a very simple, triumphant song about being freed from past and "lifted out of nowhere", and Joey's singing manages to move from restrained to jubilant over the course of the song. There's a lot going on under the surface - Chrissy Jeter adds a lot of her color with her backing vocals (even if the repeated line "Story of our, glory of our, story of our lives" provides a bit of a tired rhyme) and the song overall is just teeming with life. The album's darker side isn't far away, though - as the song ends, it fades into the solemn sound of crickets chirping in the night.

Fall Awake
And your dreams, they feel displaced
And your kiss leaves a bitter taste
And my hands, they touch your face
But I can't feel you...
A cold, calculated, but catchy beat percolates through this six-minute opus about resisting the darkness. As the first single released to mp3.com (back when it was still active), the song is an excellent example of The Echoing Green's newfound love for edgier sounds. The verses are fairly unassuming, with Joey's lower-range vocals hovering somewhere above a whisper as he pleads with a friend that he seems powerless to save from the pain she's inflicting upon herself. Though not as hard-edged as "Liberation" was, it's still a trhilling tune with plenty of peaks and valleys, thanks to the menacing low-end synths, the whispers and female vocals that add color to the background, and the gentle keyboard tones that keep the song grounded in melody.

Apology
Don't kill another dream tonight
Don't run from something you can't fight
And don't wait for sunshine in an endless night
You'll be sorry...
Warmer, happier sounds reverberate throughout this tune as a busy, rubbery rhythm forms the backdrop for a heartfelt apology from Joey to someone he has hurt. More than just telling her that he is sorry, he seems to indicate that he figures she must feel the same, making the song a bit of a plea for her to meet him in the middle. It's possible that this song was birthed out of Joey's recent marriage, since anyone new to marriage tends to stumble across a plethora of new ways to screw up. It's a touching song, albeit somewhat routine for the group at this point.

Bittersweet
The sun was warmer, held us in its arms
That's when we saw beauty of the pain that falls inside...
Here the band pulls out an obscure song from the Christian rock underground - apparently it was initially recorded by a mid-90's dream pop band called Velour 100. (I vaguely remember 'em.) The group scores another winner here by using a semi-abrasive, metallic rhythm to give the song a bit of a dissonant flavor. And yet Joey's vocals are as warm and earnest as ever as he describes the jaded world that a friend or lover has become trapped in. Even though the EG didn't write the song, it fits quite well into the second-person focus of a lot of their songs - most artists who write about darker themes seem to come from a "me" point of view, whereas Joey seems to prefer the second person, "you". It's as if he wants to reach into the bubble and shake the person out of their self-imposed stupor.

Starling
Reaching to the stars, I'll steal them all for you
Calling, crawling, spinning, falling, all for you...
Chrissy takes the lead for this sparkling pop tune - laced with echoing piano and multiple layers of her sweet voice, the song is an immediate standout, picking up where "Waterfall" and "Nightfall and Splendor" left off on Supernova. Her words could be taken as the words of God, affirming the worth and uniqueness of a person who perhaps doesn't see that in themselves. (The Christian message on this album is very subtle, and I think part of the reason The Echoing Green avoided signing to another Christian label is so that they could have the freedom to express faith in whatever terms they wanted.) The song is very bubbly and I like how one of the many copies of Chrissy's voice repeats "All about all of you" in the background, but the song is somewhat flawed in that it uses an overdone metaphor (telling someone they're a star) and it has the gall to rhyme "starling" with "darling". There are moments when this album's darkness and its happiness are at odds with each other, I guess.

Blind
Sipping from the cup of tragedy
Entangled in the web of vanity
While spitting in the face of sanity, I find you...
This song will perhaps be one of the hardest for devoted EG fans to swallow, since Joey's vocals are lower and grittier than they are on most of his songs, and his melodies are hard to follow at first. Give it a few chances, and it will reveal the genius behind its sinister, almost streetwise snarl. Here, Joey has turned his attention from the downcast and depressed to the outright delusional - those who do not want to even acknowledge their pain, and who have found a false savior in fleeting happiness. "The glow is getting bright", he warns them, "But it's not light". The vocal work in this song is strange - at one point, Joey stretches the word "eyes" out into multiple notes, playing with a scale that sounds almost Eastern. I just haven't heard many American vocalists attempting such things - the last one that comes to mind is Brandon Boyd from Incubus.

Someday
If you put your head to the window
Press your ear to the grey sky outside
The rain that's tapping the window will dry...
This song is interesting in that it has a rather fast break beat to it, but the beat actually remains rather soft and unassuming despite its speed, and there aren't a bunch of layers of noise to beef it up - just some gentle, monotone "la la"s from Chrissy in the background, and the soft sprinkle of a piano playing a chiming melody not too far removed from Coldplay's "Clocks". This gives the song an insular, rainy day sort of feel as Joey pines for a better place, offering a loved one the simple sentiment that "Someday we will leave here." It's one of those songs that floats around in the brain, its unassuming nature working its way into your subconscious through the back door.

Heidi's Song
When I can see my destiny in your russet eyes
And I can hear a symphony in your autumn sighs...
Another fairly standard dance pop tune shows up here, this one being a love song to Joey's new wife, Heidi. For some reason, I often get confused between this song and "Apology". While it's a charming enough love song, I feel like it either needs to be more slow and ambient to really envelop the listener in Joey's sentiments, or it needs to be more upbeat to be a truly enjoyable dance track. Sitting in between with a fairly standard melody (for the EG anyways - their songs are always rather catchy) and some computer-generated strings to guide the melody along, it manages to be merely decent. (But if the wife likes it, then hey, mission accomplished.)

New Gold Dream (81, 82, 83, 84)
And the world goes hot, and the cities take
And the beat goes crashing all along the way...
As I mentioned earlier, an Echoing Green album just wouldn't be complete without a fun, techno-fied 80's cover. Past tunes on the group's hitlist have included Men Without Hats' "Safety Dance", Anything Box's "Jubilation (This Thing Called Life)", Missing Persons' "Words", and Figures on a Beach's "Accidentally 4th St. (Gloria)". And Joey has done well with all of them - or at least I figure he must have, since I found most new wave-style songs from the 80's to be rather inane and annoying, and somehow he always makes me like his versions. I haven't heard the original version of this Simple Minds tune yet, but I can definitely say that Joey has cooked up another winner here, bringing the album out of the mid-tempo doldrums and heating up the dance floor with this edgy little remake. The static-drenched intro and outro, the occasionally chopped and processed vocals, and the mean synths that drive the song make it a solid, muscular piece of work. As with most 80's songs, darned if I know what the point of it is, but the refrain of "When you dream, dream with me" seems to fit into the album's theme of waiting out the darkness and longing for the light to return. Admittedly it's a bit odd to hear a line like "sirens and the ecstasy" crop up on a "Christian" album, but given how long ago the song was written, I'll just naïvely assume that it has nothing to do with drugs!

Winter
Is this the endless ride, the hell inside
And no one to confide, an innocence has died...
The album closes out on a more gentle note, remaining upbeat, but choosing to leave the listener in more mood more suited for contemplation than for dancing. As if to contrast the two musical moods that have prevailed throughout the record, Joey's verses are almost purposefully tuneless, while Chrissy's chorus is very warm and refreshing by comparison. Again the band seems to have fallen prey to a few tired rhymes ("Fly away, cry away" doesn't do much for me), but hey, at least they haven't rhymed "tomorrow" and "sorrow" in three different places on the same album like they did on Supernova. Overall I think it's a worthwhile song because I like how it brings together the two realities - the harsh winter that threatens to make us grow complacent, and the jubilant spring that we have longed to escape too. Somehow, these "warm" elements seem to be a lot more convincing when there's a cold, barren landscape for them to emerge out of.

It's a shame that this album probably won't find a larger audience. It'll be lucky if it ever sees the light of day in an actual bookstore - perhaps it'll get some attention in Joey's native New Mexico, or in other cities where loyal fans happen to be behind the counter at the local Christian bookstore, but for the most part, I'm assuming Winter is going to be an Internet-only purchase made largely by the band's existing fan base. Sure, the group's style isn't exactly en vogue at the moment, and I doubt they'd sell huge numbers even with wider exposure, but you just never know who might be intrigued to happen upon a gem like this like I was when I happened across the band's self-titled album. Looking on the bright side, though, it's nice to see the band retaining creative control over their music, and expanding their stylistic repertoire for the most part, instead of pandering to a major label in order to get their stuff out there. Here's hoping the band reaps the benefits of a more successful harvest before the next winter rolls around.

ALBUM WORTH:
Daybreak $.50
The Story of Our Lives $1.50
Fall Awake $2
Apology $1
Bittersweet $1.50
Starling $1
Blind $2
Someday $1.50
Heidi's Song $.50
New Gold Dream (81, 82, 83, 84) $2
Winter $1
TOTAL: $14.50

CONCLUSION: Go for it if you're at all curious. It's a solid buy.

Website: http://www.echocentral.com

Recommended: Yes

Great Music to Play While: Exercising