Metal is filled with reluctant vocalists. Whether it’s Dave Mustaine ultimately deciding to front Megadeth, or Mikael Åkerfeldt hesitantly filling the void in Opeth, or Troy Sanders and Brent Hinds eventually co-voicing Mastodon,1 vocals often exist in the genre as an afterthought. But what happens when there’s no after to the afterthought? You get something like Only Echoes, an instrumental post-metal quartet from Denver, CO. In their promo materials, Only Echoes explain that they formed expecting vocals to play a part in their music, but ‘when the time came to decide who would sing, no one raised a hand.’ This lack of vocals, however, became a staple of the band’s identity, fueling their self-titled EP (2018) and debut LP Sunsickness (2022), both of which were independently released. Arriving via Braeburn Records, sophomore album Born Adrift promises ‘an internal narrative without relying on lyrics to explain it.’ Said promo materials do, however, sketch the narrative: the album charts ‘a journey through survival, uncertainty, and the strange momentum that keeps a person moving through hostile waters.’
Without a vocalist, Only Echoes rely on the versatile arsenals of their instrumentalists to convey Born Adrift’s arc. The band references several acts one would expect as influences on an (instrumental) post-metal album: Russian Circles, Pelican, Isis.2 On the guitar front, Austin Minney and Dustin Yourishin combine for a menagerie of flickering melodies, glimmering clean chords, and chunky chugs. Drummer Zach Sirotkin lays down a bevy of blast beats, d-beats, and double-bass thunder. Meanwhile, bassist Ben Rosenberg periodically pokes through the mix with some upper-fret flourishes. As some elements of this description of Only Echoes hint at, Born Adrift doesn’t quite channel the spirit of the bands cited above. Yes, there are some well-earned quiet-to-heavy, heavy-to-quiet transitions across the album. But by and large, Only Echoes play far less patiently than these groups, swiftly shuffling between blissed-out breathers, punk-rock paces, and core-ish chuggery. Despite their mostly 6–8 minute lengths, the songs tend to sound like bursts of metal grab bag.
Because all but one song on Born Adrift briskly bounces between styles, any sense of album-spanning narrative is hard to detect. My criticism of the grab-bag songwriting notwithstanding, “Born Adrift” and “Tempest” do open the record with excitement, showcasing a band capable of moving melodies and infectious tempos. “So Tightly Bound” seems like it will be compositionally different; it develops an enchanting vibe across three minutes. But then the song quickly jumps into a d-beat-driven punk part, capped off with some obligatory chugging. It’s as if there’s a missing middle between the beginning and the punky outburst. After the aptly titled interlude (“Inter”), the album closes by showing some signs of patient development (“Steps Ahead of Drowning”). But then Only Echoes revert back to their familiar mode, jarringly contrasting serene buildups with breakneck speed (“Shimmering Death”). At 35 minutes, Born Adrift isn’t exactly a chore to get through, but it often feels longer than it is. I almost get the sense that Only Echoes tried to cram an album’s worth of material into nearly every song.
Unfortunately, sonic missteps also become a barrier to enjoying Only Echoes’s sophomore outing. On the production end of things, Born Adrift does seem cognizant of intentional mixing: the drums and bass grow more present in sections where the guitars are textural and ambient. The guitars, however, unpleasantly dominate the mix when Minney and Yourishin turn towards chugging rhythms. The bass, when it sticks to lower registers, gets lost and feels inessential. The big issue, however, concerns the low bitrate of Born Adrift’s audio files (128 kbps). At lower volumes, the album sounds compressed and mushy; at higher volumes, it’s clippy and grating. As a metal album in want of blasting, this latter fact is quite unfortunate.
Born Adrift ultimately disappoints, but not for its lack of vocals per se. As instrumentalists, Only Echoes clearly possess chops, and they show a knack for crafting and connecting affecting passages (“Born Adrift,” “Tempest”). Too often, however, these passages are disrupted by abrupt stylistic changes that come off as contrived. Additionally, the sonic flaws sadly hamper an album that does, at times, sound massive and powerful. In my view, Only Echoes don’t necessarily need someone to step up and command the microphone. They might, however, exercise the kind of restrained patience that, for me at least, tends to make for notable instrumental metal/rock.
Rating: 2.0/5.0
DR: 6 | Format Reviewed: 128 kbps mp3
Label: Braeburn Records
Websites: Official | Instagram | Facebook
Releases Worldwide: August 14th, 2026
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