Echo Us is the musical concept project of American composer and multi-instrumentalist Ethan J. Matthews from Portland, Oregon, and 'Inland Empire' is Echo Us's seventh album since 2004 or so, the project having been imitated some years earlier. This album serves as a sort of epilogue for the original Echo Us Trilogy (2009-2014) utilizing material that didn't fit on those three albums. On the one-sheet, a quote compares Echo Us to "Fripp, Eno, Floyd & Oldfield" some of the darlings of the Prog-Rock and Art Rock genres, and while not really off the mark, Matthews' musical vision is more aligned with Mike Oldfield's New Age symphonic progressive rock visions than the others. While we generally don't review progressive rock albums here at Chain D.L.K., 'Inland Empire' is just so different it deserves to be here.

One listen of 'Inland Empire' should be enough to convince you Matthews is a virtuoso composer and instrumentalist, but somewhat lacking in the vocal department, sounding like Peter Gabriel with less grit, and perhaps a bit under the weather. The vocals are pleasant enough, but not compelling, and the material could have been elevated with a more distinctive lead vocalist. The general mode of the music is amiable, sort of airy-fairy with some fiery moments, but it could have benefited from some darker passages for contrast. I'm somewhat reminded of Andreas Vollenweider; not his harp playing but the tone of some of his albums. On the plus side, the music is full, rich and expansive. It has a cinematic quality and luxurious ambience that is hard to achieve. Matthews' guitar playing is superb and his keyboard and programming skills are more than adequate; sometimes surprisingly adept. On the possibly negative side, there is little "Rock," so to call this a prog-rock album is really off the mark. The closest thing to that is the title track (#5 - "Inland Empire") which was pretty cool. 'Inland Empire' is a gentle and thoughtful album that offers some nice ear candy without ruffling feathers. Original release date of 2-7-23 has been pushed back to 3-7-23. If you're a self-supporting recording musician you know things seldom go as originally planned.