Echo Screen

As the SCOPE blog slowly increases in popularity, we're getting more and more request from the bands' representation to post on/about and review stuff from their artists. This first review comes from SCOPE stud Clark and is on up and coming pop-punksters Echo Screen.

Echo Screen’s catchy lyrics and made for radio appeal fit in perfectly with today’s punk rock music. However, the immediate comparisons to fellow pop-rockers such as Plain White T’s and Cartel make one wonder how this group will stand out among their peers. The demographic seems even younger than both PWT’s and Cartel’s in the song “This Letter Bomb” with phrases such as “I’ve never felt so cold/as when I shiver at the thought/of growing old (with you).” The song is a great template that, if taken to a few more vocal extremes, could really shine.

Respectively superior to “This Letter Bomb”, Echo Screen’s song “Everything after Bradford” has hooks that don’t let go and conveys a more mature attitude than “Bomb” along with thoughts of the future (“Tell me there’s more to my whole life/ than finding ways to stay alive”), amid the background of a great storyline, (“I once knew a man…”) while at the same time not losing the band’s youth perspective. You can hear the lead singer’s emotion and longing for answers right now about what is to come, clearly a feeling their audience can relate to. Echo Screen also captures the feeling of waiting and that awkward, in between part of high school and college life in “Bradford.”

This song shows much more promise and potential for the band to find their own niche in the pop/rock genre than “This Letter Bomb,” which is not a bad song, just too similar to existing songs. If Echo just takes their songs and has fun with them, instead of treating them too seriously, they have potential to really break out and find their own place among their punk/pop peers.