Echo Ono (Deluxe Version)

Album Review

Averaging two albums a year for the last three years, the three brothers in Pontiak aim to achieve an expressionistic sound on 2012's Echo Ono. As on their previous album, Living, Van, Lain, and Jennings Carney recorded the album in their Virginia farmhouse studio using only vintage gear and spent four months fleshing out the material (a long time for them). Even though they forgo distortion pedals, and go the organic route, stoner rock plays a big part of the foundation too, and the trio manages to get a heavy sound by cranking their amps until they are overdriven. The music holds true to their style of grungy neo-psych. Those familiar with the band's last seven releases won't find anything out of the ordinary. Once again, they retread the space rock concept, segueing between sturdy power jams and barnyard Americana ballads. For Echo Ono, the second half of the album ramps way down, with acoustic guitars and lazy vocals mellowing out "The Expanding Sky," "Silver Shadow," and "Stay Out, What a Sight." Then, the fog rolls in for the dreamlike "Royal Colors" before the six-and-a-half-minute firestorm of "Panoptic," a free-form drum-bashing instrumental, clears it all away.