Achelas - Echoes Of Virtue Progressive Voyages Review PV032
Achelas – Echoes of Virtue Progressive Voyages Review PV032 by Chris Clark
Achelas’s Achraf El Asraoui (with stickman Mouad Azizi on the drums) is onto something, ladies and gentlemen. Starting in 2020, when the band formed, and to date releasing 5 records, Achelas’s fifth effort, “Echoes of Virtue”, is evidence of a project that has truly begun to find its sound. El Asraoui has insisted that you cannot pigeon-hole Achelas into any one particular progressive rock sub-genre; rather…. Their influences, he says, are wide-ranging; impossible to nail down. And, as this latest album shows, he is quite correct.
Released on August 31, 2024, “Echoes of Virtue” is presented as “a concept album, telling the story of a society on the brink of collapse due to the erosion of critical thinking and moral values.” (You can stop right there… you had me at ‘concept album’. HA!) Throughout my listens to this fresh and inspiring record, I have discovered that Achelas does, indeed, offer the listener a wide variance of styles and touches on many sub-genres of progressive rock; from folk prog with a middle-eastern sensibility to avant-garde to a softer edged neo-prog. The album is not without some minor issues; it’s all-too short for a full length album (clocking in at approximately 36 minutes), and there are (brief) moments of double-bass work on the drums that seem somewhat out of place within the context of the songs they’re in, for example. But these issues are very few and far between. What we have here, on the whole, is a fantastic addition to Achelas’s discography. SO…. Join me, won’t you? And let’s delve track-by-track into Achelas’s vision of dystopia and their hope for a future resolution.
‘Dialogue 33’ – one might think that an album with an opening track that is a mere 1:43, you would be consigned to listening to an intro that is little more than noise. But Achelas gives you some substance in that short time; setting a pensive mood underneath the sounds of helicopters and radio chatter…. A tribal beat carries a middle-eastern style chant accompanied by some very tasteful guitar work.
‘Veils of Unseen Realities’ – the pensive feel of the intro carries into the 2nd track, which starts silently, but builds into a great guitar refrain. The mood of the song is what sells it; it is a slow but powerful build. There several influences subtly on display, before the song works its way into…
‘Echoes Across the Cosmos’ – here we see the mood, still pensive and foreboding, brought down into the realms of soft-prog, and the result is beautiful and heart-breaking. Lovely vocals play over the piano and orchestral sounds; the soul wailing a lament and a solace and comfort for a lost friend. We get a blistering (but all too short) guitar solo here that puts Al Asraoui’s playing ability on full display. The track then turns into a march of sorts…. A pounding rhythm which propels us to one of the album’s absolute best tracks….
‘Celestial Paradox’ – this song BLEEDS atmosphere and mood. A simple, beautiful clean guitar line plays over a single held orchestral note as the voice sets a brooding scene that you can see and feel; a journey of confusion, fear, loss and eventual enlightenment. It’s just gorgeous and envelopes your soul in warmth and hope. An album highlight.
‘Dazt Laawam’ – Arabic for “The Years Passed”, this track is sung in a mixture of English and Arabic, and furthers the journey started in ‘Celestial Paradox’. Musically, it starts with an almost folk-rock, swing type feel, before moving into a straight groove that carries throughout most of the song. Interesting chord progressions keep the listener engaged as the beat becomes tribal and then upbeat and almost pop-like. There are so many shifts in feel and style throughout this song that it is hard to keep track of them all, and while the constant changes can be a bit disconcerting in their frequency, they keep the listener alert and attentive, and make listening to the track an adventure all its own.
‘Lies in Their Eyes’ – this track returns us to the soft-prog side of things, with an opening that had me feeling vibes of the opening of Metallica’s ‘Nothing Else Matters’. Another slow and heartfelt lament on the failings and corruption of society, the highlight of this track is an excellent guitar solo, provided courtesy of KariBows’s Philipp Dauenhauer, which carries us through to the song’s conclusion as it slowly fades away, into….
‘Echoes of the Unseen’ – the soft-prog feel stays with us on this track. Other than continuing the conceptual journey of the album’s character, this is, for the most part, one of the more straight-forward tracks on the record. I say “for the most part”, because toward the end we get a turn toward a heavier prog style that uses a chorus of voices (very nice) and more double-bass work on the drums (which, again, seems a bit out of place on this record…. But doesn’t last long). The song then fades into the final track….
‘’Honest Dream’ – a stunningly beautiful, ethereal soft guitar lamenting the state of the world but offering a hope for a better tomorrow sends the listener off on waves of gorgeous, serene tone and atmosphere as the album draws to a conclusion.
Achelas is a marvelous band. I think the best thing I can say about them is that they sound like… themselves. While drawing on progressive influences aplenty, they don’t COPY anyone…. They have developed a sound and style all their own, and that makes them quite unique in a world where all too often bands have no real sense of identity. “Echoes of Virtue” is a big step in the right direction of continuing to define their sound and style, and it is well worth your time and effort to give it a listen.
Info here: Echoes Of Virtue ( Full Album ) | Achelas https://share.google/2mOFLrk7GgNvkVz3e
Author Chris Clark