Eidola
To Speak, To Listen
(Blue Swan Records)
Eidola is where it’s at. With modern technology helping cement what sometimes feels like an over-abundance of bands, the task gets perhaps unnecessarily more difficult for bands to prove themselves as unique, but Eidola has risen to the task on their latest release, To Speak, To Listen.
They’re moderately accessible to people who aren’t even fans of the genre that the band most closely identifies with, post-hardcore. To Speak, To Listen feels at times like what could be called an orchestra sized sonic adventure, and the album ventures close to the overwhelming but it doesn’t go too far so as to make it inaccessible.
Eidola’s music features highly technical riffing and a nice back and forth between screams and clean vocals. Andrew Wells, the band’s frontman, has a voice that feels at times like it comes from soul music, with bellowing lows and very listenable highs with no trace of anything “screechy.” On the other hand, the screams on the album, coming apparently mostly from guitarist Matthew Dommer, almost sound like they’re coming from a different giant of the hardcore scene, Jon Mess of Dance Gavin Dance. Ironically, Wells was a touring guitarist for DGD at one point recently, and Wells has cited DGD as an influence, which is somewhat evident in To Speak, To Listen.
Lyrically, To Speak, To Listen explores a wide array of human issues through the lens of sometimes far out philosophical concepts, but there’s something for everyone on the album, even if you’re not familiar with some of the terms mentioned. The forceful poeticism of the lyrics evokes thoughts of bands like Silent Planet, Being As An Ocean, and even Dance Gavin Dance, which always manages to find a unique way to say things.
Against the backdrop of complex music, To Speak, To Listen goes from exploring why the world is as it is politically and socially speaking to exploring why the speaker’s relationships with other people are as they are. The album likely needs a few listens, along with a possible explanation for the lyrics from the band, to really get the hang of it, but it is sufficiently unique and sonically attractive to make that no big deal. Listening through To Speak, To Listen multiple times is worth it. As on previous Eidola releases, there is a story to be heard.
