The Invisible World – Color / Echo

This is a band going places. You’ve heard that before. The cliché is true this time. The Invisible World have the right combination of rock, softer strains, pop, melody, and ambition to carry them above the pack. Their latest EP release, Color / Echo, gives them six songs that help make this case in startlingly vivid fashion. There isn’t a song here that plays like filler and the time they’ve invested into their composition and arrangements are apparent. Vocalist Jesse Collins, naturally, gets much of the production’s focus, but there’s balance here that highlights the band’s various strengths. It follows on the heels of their successful debut EP Welcome to the Invisible World and, with this release, the band have established a memorable one-two punch setting the stage for a future full length album to follow.

The opening song and title track begin Color / Echo with an impressive display of energy and   ambition. The band never overplays their hand with some leaden alt rock epic, but the song’s relatively brief length does nothing to hamper its scope. The raging, ransacking guitars never lose sight of serving the song and there’s no grandiose moment when one player takes over to the exclusion of his band mates’s contributions. A similar collaborative theme fuels all of the material on Color / Echo and is just as distinguishable on much more unfettered rockers like the EP’s second song “Bellamy”. The production aesthetic powering this EP suits songs like this very well because the band’s sonic blueprint is so uniformly well balanced. Make no mistake, however, that their approach yields multi-faceted rewards. The same approach lends the EP’s third song, “The Way”, an unity of sound and purpose. Collins turns in a vocal that does much to strengthen the song’s atmospherics without tumbling headfirst into melodrama.

“Joliet” is another rocker with a much nervier edge than the earlier “Bellamy”. Collins takes command of its slightly unusual vocal melody with considerable finesse, but the vocal remains grounded and emotive. “Brick by Brick” brings the band unexpectedly into outright folk territory with this strongly singer/songwriter influenced number marrying the band’s best lyrical moment on the album with a memorable and fluently unwound melody. The EP’s climatic number, “Oughta Know”, is a rambunctious track full of attitude not present on the earlier rockers, but there’s an equally bittersweet undercurrent fueling the song that makes it a good closer.

The Invisible World scores big with Color / Echo. Another sure sign of the band’s artistic vision is how they have methodically built their ascension in a remarkably coherent fashion. They are clearly aware of the blocks needed to be placed in order for them to realize all of their short and long range goals. Color / Echo reaffirms the virtues of their debut release while developing them further. Color / Echo is an impressive statement in its own regard, but it sets the stage for the band’s planned first full length release. The Invisible World are here to stay.

The Invisible World – Color / Echo

URL: http://welcometotheinvisibleworld.com/

9 out of 10 stars.

I-TUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/color-echo-ep/id1104737554

Cyrus Rhodes