Houston-based rockers The Shrubs emit a melodic rock sound throughout their new album Echoes of a Dream. Drawing praise in the Texas music scene since 2013 with a psych-friendly, atmospheric rock sound, this album marks their latest foray. Following several years of writing, recording, scrapping that, and starting over, the album has arrived, and the extended creative process was well worth it.
“Over the course of the next two years, we slowly wrote and revised the tracks until we had a collection of songs that we were really, really happy with,” explains the band. “We really spent a lot of time in our studio adding lots of little layers and strange sounds in the background of most of the tracks to help build the atmosphere, making each one, for the most part, a little world unto itself.”
Alongside new member Sophie, The Shrubs’ three vocalists add to a compelling overall sound, with their various tonal reaches and deliveries combining with consistently high-quality songwriting. These elements meld with a production uhjighlighted by vintage recording equipment, such as a Teac x-700r reel-to-reel player and an old ’90s Tascam Portastudio cassette 4-track recorder.
Highlights are numerous, from the shimmering psych-rock of the previously featured “Summer Sun” to the folk-friendly intrigue of “Cassette” and hypnotic pop of “Doesn’t Matter.” Stream it in full below:
