In this post, Brad Birzer and Tad Wert discuss the recent releases from Echolyn: TimeSilentRadio II and TimeSilentRadio VII.

Tad: Brad, I am really excited about discussing these two albums with you. I discovered Echolyn back in 2012 with their eponymous album (I call it the “Windows Album”, because of its cover art), which knocked me out with its beauty and melodicism. They followed that one up with the excellent I Heard You Listening in 2015, and, except for the extraordinary Accumulated Blur single, there was nothing. I thought perhaps they had quit making new music, when, lo and behold, they graced us with not one but two full-length albums! 

TImeSilentRadio II features two songs: Time Has No Place (16:37) and Water In Our Hands (28:51), while TimeSilentRadio VII has seven tracks. I’ll start things off with stating how much I love Time Has No Place – it brings to mind side two of the Beatles’ Abbey Road, with its relatively short sections that combine into a powerful suite of music. I also hear hints of The Band, believe it or not, in a general “rootsiness” to the playing. Chris Buzby, Ray Weston, and Brett Kull have never sounded better, in my opinion, than they do now. These are seasoned, incredibly talented musicians at the top of their game. It doesn’t hurt that they also compose such catchy melodies!

What are your thoughts on this first song?

Brad: Tad, as always, a pleasure to talk with you about our favorite bands.  And, Echolyn is certainly a favorite band.  I’m in total agreement with you regarding the “Windows Album” from 2012.  It’s excellent, and its sound is so much more evolved than the band’s earlier work.  Truly a gorgeous progression and transition of the band overall from their beginnings through now.  I also really love Mei and I Heard You Listening.  Their work is incredibly complex, compelling, and mature.

I first came across Echolyn during graduate school in Bloomington, Indiana.  It was right after I finished my coursework and began to formulate my dissertation that I came across a copy of As the World.  Frankly, that CD–one of the first CDs I ever bought, along with The Hurting by Tears for Fears and October by U2–came into constant rotation, and I absorbed every aspect of it.  To be sure, it’s a weird CD, a real hodgepodge of lyrics and ideas and musical styles.  It was clear, however, that the band had absolutely poured themselves into As the World and, from almost every perspective, the album was simply “over the top” in its earnestness.  Of course, this only endeared the CD even more to me.

It should be remembered that Echolyn emerged at the same time as Hogarth-led Marillion, Roine Stolt’s The Flower Kings, and Neal Morse’s Spock’s Beard.  To put it simply, prog was in the air, and this was the very beginning of third-wave prog, led, in the beginning, by an equal number of European/English and American acts.  While grunge was dominating in the United States, there were also acts like Phish and Dave Matthews that weren’t prog, but they were prog-adjacent.  Soon, of course, the European culture would embrace prog a million times more than the American culture would, but that’s another post.  Echolyn were a bunch of young guys from the East Coast, and they were making stunningly complex music, theatrical to its core. 

So, frankly, Echolyn arrived in my life at a truly critical point.  I’d finished my coursework, but I’d not started the dissertation; I was working for the Organization of American Historians as a full-time editor, and I was still single, two years away from meeting Dedra.  Plus, I was deeply searching for meaning in all the music I listened to–whether Talk-era Yes, Brave-era Marillion, Happy Days-era Catherine Wheel, or As the World-era Echolyn.  Each of these albums was dramatically shaping my soul, my artistic outlook, and, especially, my approach to writing.  Frankly, it was a lonely but glorious time, full of adventure as well as full of challenges.

The lyrics of As the World–much like earlier Rush and Talk Talk had done–joyfully encouraged me to find my own path, to ignore the crowd, and to embrace creativity against a tapioca conformity.

So, I don’t mean to be sappy, Tad, but I simply wouldn’t be who I am today without Echolyn as those other bands just mentioned.  

As such, when Echolyn releases a new album–or, as it turned out–two new albums, I’m fully in the moment, absorbing everything I can.

Though rooted in the progressive rock tradition, Echolyn is very much their own band.  If pushed, though, I would say I hear in all their music, a huge amount of Hackett-era Genesis, a lot of Kansas, a bit of Styx, and a lot of the Tin Spirits.  The latter might just be coincidence rather than direct influence.  Or, the influence might go the other way.

But, this has been a long digression, Tad, as you only asked me for my opinion about the first track on TimeSilentRadioII, “Time Has No Place.”  Well, I love it.  From that opening guitar riff, sounding like something from the Allman Brothers, I’m completely hooked.  And, the lyrics are tone poems, invoking a myriad of images.  Yeah, Tad, this is something truly special, musically as well as lyrically.

Tad: Brad, as always, I love hearing how various artists and albums have impacted your life. I can say the same about a few albums – Roxy Music’s Avalon and Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything?, to name a couple.

Okay, we both love “Time Has No Place”. Once again, I’ll point out how wonderfully the Beatlesque melodies pour out in this one track – it’s a blast, and it sounds like the band had a great time putting it together.

The second track on TimeSilent Radio II  is “Water In Our Hands”, and it’s almost 30 minutes long. It strikes me as more weighty and serious. I have listened to it several times, and I love the way it develops. It also contains what it probably my favorite stretch of music out of both albums: “Water In Our Hands, Part VI”, which is the final seven minutes. I must not be alone in my admiration of this section, because Echolyn made an official video for it:

There seems to be a lot of emotion in their performance, and I find it very moving. It’s just a beautiful piece of music, and one of my favorite tracks of 2025.

Brad: Thanks, Tad.  I would love to hear the story of Avalon and Something/Anything and what they mean to you.  Sounds like a great story.

I will admit, I was a bit taken aback with “Water in Our Hands.”  At 28plus minutes, I so desperately wanted to love the heck out of this track.  I wanted it to be the 2025 equivalent of 2009’s “The Under Fall Yard.”  And, for the most part I do love it.  

But, I must also admit–though this may just be the inner Puritan speaking–I hate the employment of the F word and the sort of growling presentation of it.  I just don’t understand the necessity for it.  It’s such a violent word, and it really disrupts the beauty of this song.  Echolyn is better than this, and so is its audience.  We demand beauty, truth, and goodness!

Ok, this quip aside, it’s a truly gorgeous track that flows, for the most part, immaculately, word to word, idea to idea, and tune to tune.

And, totally agreed, the last seven minutes are just simply glorious.  So perfectly Beatlesque.  

So, Tad, what do you think of the second CD, TimeSilentRadio VII?  As strong as the first disk?

Tad: Brad, at first I thought TimeSilentRadio VII was not as strong as TSR II, but the more I listen to them (and I have been listening to them as a pair), I find myself drawn to the shorter songs in TSR VII. It starts off with such an enjoyable bang with “Radio Waves”. The vocal harmonies are spot-on, and Buzby’s piano work is absolutely stellar. It’s right at 7 minutes long, but it seems much shorter. Maybe because it’s fairly fast-paced.

“Silent Years” is just as good, with some gritty guitar riffing paired with piano. Jordan Perlson’s drumming is rock-solid on this track, while the vocal harmonies are outstanding (again). As a matter of fact, I don’t recall any Echolyn album featuring vocal arrangements this complex and beautiful.

I love how “Cul-de-Sacs and Tunnels” has a really atmospheric intro that soon bursts into an energetic middle section before subsiding into a calmer conclusion. The last couple of minutes (“She’s still burning bright”) are just gorgeous. 

“Boulders on Hills” is about, I believe, domestic strife due to financial stresses. It’s an appropriately tense track. “I want more/I’ve got nothing left to give” is the sound of two desperate people. “Our Brilliant Next” is a relatively easygoing track, while “On We Blur” is a fun and bouncy tune that I find myself irresistibly singing along to. This is another song they’ve released a video for:

Trigger warning, Brad – there’s an f-bomb in it! I agree with you that it’s discouraging how the use of that language is getting normalized, but I think Echolyn are being strategic in its deployment. That said, I’d rather not hear it. 

TSR VII closes with “Tiny Star”, another song accompanied with an official video, and what a great song to wrap things up with! This is the strongest track on the album, and it encapsulates everything that is good about Echolyn: delightfully catchy melodies with interesting twists, tight-as-a-tick musicianship, and layers of vocal harmonies. “Tiny Star” is one of their best songs ever. 

Brad, I’ve rambled on a bit, but to summarize, I would say both TSR II and TSR VII are essential additions to Echolyn’s discography. It’s as if no time has passed since their last release, and they sound better than ever. Finally, I think they are two parts of an indivisible whole. I can’t imagine listening to just one album; they complement each other perfectly and need to be taken as one suite of music.

Brad: A brilliant synopsis of TimeSilentRadio VII, Tad.  Thank you.  And, I totally agree with you on these two releases.  There really couldn’t be one without the other, and I’ve been happily listening to both over the past few weeks.  I had the same thought as you–that II was better than VII, but the more I listen to it, the more I think they are equal and necessary, one to the other.  An excellent decision on the part of Echolyn to release both.

And, each adds not only something gorgeous to my Echolyn collection (and, yes, as with anything I love, I am a completist and rather hyper about it) but to my overall music collection.  As I look back over the last twenty-plus years of third wave prog, America might not quite compete in terms of volume with Europe, but it certainly does in quality.

Readers can order the new Echolyn releases here or here.