Echos is the eighth studio album by Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

-based Gothic rock

Gothic rock

Gothic rock is a musical subgenre of post-punk and alternative rock that formed during the late 1970s. Gothic rock bands grew from the strong ties they had to the English punk rock and emerging post-punk scenes...

 band Lacrimosa

Lacrimosa (band)

Lacrimosa is a duo led by German Tilo Wolff, the main composer, and Finnish Anne Nurmi, currently based in Switzerland, but originally from Germany...

. It features classically influenced Gothic-themed rock music. The title is German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 for "echoes".

Style

Echos begins with an orchestral overture

Overture

Overture in music is the term originally applied to the instrumental introduction to an opera...

 of 13 minutes length and continues with a mix of symphonic elements and hard rock that is typical of Lacrimosa. However the entire album is oriented towards classical instruments rather than hard electric guitars. Singer Anne Nurmi

Anne Nurmi

Anne Marjanna Nurmi is a Finnish singer, composer and keyboard player who is a member of the band Lacrimosa. She lives in Switzerland.In her youth she sang in church choirs and began playing keyboard....

's only solo track "Apart" has been compared to music by the Cocteau Twins

Cocteau Twins

Cocteau Twins were a Scottish alternative rock band active from 1979 to 1997, known for innovative instrumentation and atmospheric, non-lyrical vocals...

. Generally, the album has been seen as a typical work by Lacrimosa.

Reception

The album received positive reviews from the critics and stayed in the German charts

Media Control Charts

The official music charts in Germany are gathered and published by the company Media Control GfK International on behalf of Bundesverband Musikindustrie...

 for eight weeks peaking at position 13. The single "Durch Nacht und Flut" reached position 51 in the German charts.

Allmusic lauded the subtlety of the songs while the German Laut magazine was positive about Lacrimosa following their own concept instead of being influenced by expectations from the fans. While writing a very positive review, the German Powermetal magazine still marked that producer and composer Tilo Wolff

Tilo Wolff

Tilo Wolff is a German musician currently living in Switzerland.His longest-running project is the band Lacrimosa, which since its debut in 1990 has produced 9 albums, which embrace a diverse range of gothic, darkwave and orchestral musical styles...

's musical concept had begun to become too abstract and demanding for a broad audience to comprehend.

Track listing