Egregore – It Echoes In The Wind
Egregore – It Echoes In The Wind
20 Buck Spin
Release Date: 20/03/2026
Review by Laura Barnes
9/10
Ask any musician about their concerns with the music industry, and there’s a decent chance that they’ll start talking about the dwindling attention spans of the general population. They would probably say something like, if it wasn’t for those darn Tick Tacks, then my three hour concept album about the life cycle of a snail would surely have outsold “Master of Puppets”. Whenever anybody starts talking like this, I can’t help but indulge in an eyeroll. It’s the musical equivalent of “I could have gone pro if not for the knee injury”, and I have very little time for it. This is Metal, people. If the listener isn’t paying attention to you, then you grab them by the throat and you make them pay attention.
This is something that Canadian Death Metallers Egregore understand completely. They understand that the secret of keeping your listeners attention is this: don’t be fucking boring. Despite the unquestionably retro sound of this album (think Bolt Thrower, Death and Cirith Ungol stitched together, Frankenstyle), Egregore is a relatively young project, and it shows. Beneath the crushing riffs and the Rob Halford-style falsettos lies so much excitement and passion for their craft. “It Echoes In The Wind” feels like it came from a time when Death Metal was new, and there was so much unchartered territory to explore.
In typical 80s fashion, the album opens with the obligatory atmospheric introduction in the form of ‘Cast Adrift’. Now, I wouldn’t normally spend much time talking about an intro, but there are already hints of the innovation that is yet to come: there’s throat singing, trumpets, and if you listen closely, the rattling of a chain. It’s just a hint of atmosphere before we dive straight into the punishing ‘Voice on the West Wind’, which, quite frankly, sounds more like ‘Voice From The Inside Of A Volcano’, such is its volatility. Of course, ‘Voice on the West Wind’ sounds more like ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’ in comparison to later tracks ‘Craven Acts of Desperate Men’ and ‘From The Yawning Crevice Shrieks A Transmophic Gate’. I mean, holy shit! Vocalist Essentia Collapse (no, really) takes you on a ride so discombobulating that by the time those twelve minutes are over, you’ll feel like a changed woman.
Of course, one cannot praise Essentia Collapse without also offering praise to Egregore’s guitarist: Catastrophe Saturnia. Catastrophie plays the guitar exactly how you would expect someone named Catastrophe to play guitar: with earthshaking speed and intensity. With this sort of ability, it would be easy for Mr. Saturnia to take the ‘all style, no substance’ route. Shredding for the sake of shredding is, in my belief, a huge problem in the Death Metal community, and we should all aim to stamp out this behaviour when we see (hear?) it. While Catastrophie’s shredding is of the highest calibre, he also knows when to dial it back and let melody and emotion take over. He really displays his range on ‘Nightmare Cartographer’, a track that veers wildly between terror and melancholy. Agonised verses are stitched together by periods of incredibly sombre guitar-based interludes, putting you in the mind of someone cursing their fate while also remembering just how perfect everything used to be.
There is no doubt in my mind that there are people out there who may find Egregore’s music profoundly overstimulating. Indeed, one can imagine “It Echoes In The Wind” being used as some sort of sleep-deprivation-torture-device, such is its intensity (I’m being serious – the CIA did actually use Death Metal albums as intruments of torture in the early 90s… Stay woke, people). But the truth of the matter is, it’s 2025 and everybody is overstimulated, all the fucking time. “It Echoes In The Wind” has achieved the great feat of being so overstimulating that nothing else can filter in. If it’s a choice between being overstimulated by a dude called Catastrophe Saturnia or being overstimulated by 13 Instagram reels, 65 emails, 50 algorgithm-tailored Metalcore bands and 345 BetterHelp ads, I’m taking Egregore anyday.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Cast Adrift
02. Voice on the West Wind
03. Stair Into The Vortex
04. Craven Acts of Desperate Men
05. From the Yawning Crevasse Shrieks A Transmorphic Gate
06. Corsairs of the Daath Gulf
07. Nightmare Cartographer
08. Six Doors Guard The Original Knowledges
09. Servants of the Second Death
10. It Echoes In The Wind
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Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Laura Barnes and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
