ARCH ECHO
Berklee graduates fuse djent and jazz with colourful results.
“We’d just got out of music school and had this sudden sense of reality of needing to put what we’d learnt to good use,” explains Arch Echo keyboardist Joey Izzo. Izzo and three of his now-bandmates had just graduated from the prestigious Berklee School Of Music, and they all needed a vehicle for conveying their new-found knowledge and glorious technical ability. Playing on their mutual love for meandering jazz fusion and aggressive prog metal, Arch Echo were born.
“There are songs where we give our all to our instruments and give a sense of what we can do. That’s part of what makes this band fun for us,” Izzo says, “but we wanted to make it melodic and very inspiring too, so there’s something to take a hold of when you listen. The primary focus is about making it as listenable as possible without compromising the musicianship.”
They released their debut self-titled album in May, and it bristles with a vibrant chemistry. Their ideas are spoken through a slew of stirring emotions, lively with cinematic melodies and choppy, aggressive rhythms. From the dazzling pianos and grunting djent of Color Wheel to Spark’s hurricane infused notation and Bloom’s genteel Plini-meets-Allan-Holdsworth guitar work, their songs are full of colour and flair.
“We wrote the album from the listener’s perspective,” says guitarist Adam Rafowitz, opening up on a songwriting process hinged on patience. They’d write, step back and listen, separating themselves from the song. Where a song travelled to next was dictated by where they, as listeners, would have liked it to.
In the studio, the drums and bass were tracked live together, giving them a very natural heartbeat, feeding off each other’s playing and allowing Martinez’s personality to ooze out into every improvised drum fill. Elsewhere,
Joey Izzo’s luscious pianos provide an earthy yet ethereal counterpoint to the twin attack of djent guitars: light and shade meeting in the middle. It is pure, personal and provocative, methodically arranged but delivered with genuine heart and humanity.
It’s hard to believe that it was only three days before their first live show together that the band actually all played together for the very first time. Only then, as they headed out on the road for a run of tour dates across the East Coast of the United States, did they feel as though the band had truly come to life. Now they’re shifting through the gears.
“Playing live has been the full realisation and experience of what we wanted this band to be from the start,” says Izzo. “We have a lot of mutual respect for each other because we can all do things the other guys can’t, so when we come together it really comes to life.”
“We’ve loved the energy on stage,” adds Rafowitz, with a glance to the future,“Now we’re writing the second album and we feel like we’re a flower blooming. We’re gonna continue working like the world’s against us. Then maybe this can be more than a hobby.” PoW