Hollow Leg – Dust And Echoes review

01. Poison Bite
02. Sick Days
03. Funeral Storms
04. Another Day Dying
05. Holy Water
06. Last Tribe
07. Bury Our Kings
08. Red Skies
09. Ride The Wave / Dig The Grave

Hollow Leg have re-released Dust and Echoes; however, this time it's all as one album, and it works out much better this way too.

Hollow Leg are a sludge metal band based in Florida, US. They originally started as a duo back in 2008, but are now a foursome, with Brent Lynch (vocals/guitars) the only original member remaining. Their style is mainly a combination of sludge and doom with American blues, Southern rock, grunge, and psychedelic influences, which places them in a similar category to bands such as Crowbar, Down, Eyehategod, and Kylesa. 

The band now present their fifth full-length release Dust And Echoes, a combination of their two 2024 EP releases, with the first 5 tracks taken from Dust and the following 4 from Echoes. Each EP isn't particularly different in style from the other despite being released separately, so they merge naturally together here as a single cohesive record rather than as an album of two halves; if you haven't managed to listen to the two EPs of 2024 yet, then here's a great opportunity for you to cover them both in their entirety. 

Each EP presents a post-apocalyptic theme that represents human collapse, survival, and rebirth. Dust generally focuses on more devastating and hopeless themes, which are reflected through heavy trudging mid-tempo sludge/doom riffs, crushing low-toned bass, pummelling drums, and aggressive semi-harsh vocals. On the flip side, Echoes and its songs offer a more hopeful and uplifting counterpart, through more traditional riff melodies, groovier bass lines, and more stylish drumming. As a whole, Dust And Echoes is the band's most complete offering, and covers everything the band has done so far in their discography. While doomy sludge metal remains the band's primary style, the incorporation of distorted grunge-style vocals, bluesy guitar leads, psychedelic keys, spacey synth effects, and an ideal balance of heaviness and melody throughout makes for their most varied songwriting approach to date. It's equally devastating as it is groovy, and there's riff melodies that'll give you the incentive to headbang senselessly, yet enough heaviness to almost shatter your ear drums.

Dust And Echoes doesn't reach the levels of groove or memorability that Kylesa have previously delivered, nor the sheer heaviness and aggression of Crowbar, and I certainly wouldn't say it rivals the overall quality of bands such as Mastodon, but this is a sound within the sludge category that manages to sprawl across each of those bands, ultimately giving fans of the genre something to drool over. I've never quite taken to the idea of re-releasing and remastering EPs and albums, especially if barely a year has passed; however, this is an instance in which it makes sense to merge the two EPs in question together for a more fulfilling and satisfying listening experience.

Rating breakdown

Performance:	7
Songwriting:	7
Originality:	6
Production:	7

Written on 22.06.2025 by Feel free to share your views.

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