Phantom Wave – Echoes Unknown

I know I’m always in for a treat when a release from Brighton’s Shore Dive Records hits my inbox. It’s even better when you find out after the fact. This is how Brooklyn’s Phantom Wave found their way to my ears. With Echoes Unknown, their third album and first for the aforementioned Shoredive Records, the trio of Ian Carpenter, Yanek Che and Rachel Fischer have found something bigger, brighter, and a little stranger. It feels like they’ve taken everything they learned from the past few years and decided to throw the doors wide open.

They recorded the album upstate at The Building in Marlboro, New York. Mixing came courtesy of Elliott Frazier from Ringo Deathstarr, and that choice makes sense the moment the first track hits. You can hear Elliott’s knack for depth and density all over these tracks. It’s a record that glows rather than burns, constantly shifting between propulsion and dreamlike textures. There’s something familiar in the DNA for sure. Y’know, the usual suspects (MBV, Ride, Lush, Slowdive, DIIV etc) but Phantom Wave never sound like a museum piece. They take those reference points and use them like brushstrokes rather than blueprints.

Let’s jump in a see what the band have painted for us.

The album kicks off with the title track ‘Echoes Unknown’ in a haze of sound that feels like standing at the edge of a city at night. You can almost hear the hum of neon. Carpenter’s vocals swim up from underneath, soft and distant, the guitars swirling around him. It’s got pace, power and delivers on the emotional level too. Great opener.

Then comes ‘Splashed’, which feels like stepping straight into daylight. The tribal drums hit a little harder, the reverb brightens, and there’s this rolling bassline that keeps you moving forward. You get the sense they’re pushing outwards, not looking back. There’s a distinct eighties glimmer on show in the verses which gets consumed by the crash of the choruses.

‘Hologrammer’ brings a more reflective mood, caught somewhere between dream pop and shoegaze. The guitars sound like mirrors turning in sunlight, shifting colours every few seconds. It’s hypnotic and strangely human. Incidentally this song works really well driving at night. It has that gloom with flashes of clarity every so often.

By the time we reach ‘Woozy’, everything clicks. This one already surfaced as a single, and it still lands like a gut punch. The build-up is slow, deliberate, teasing you before the full force hits. When Carpenter finally lets his voice tear through the mix it feels earned. Then comes that outro, guitars swirling in ever-widening circles, the song collapsing beautifully in on itself. It’s the kind of moment that makes you remember why you fell for this genre in the first place.

‘Breakaway’ is a real curveball. What sounds like some kind of saxophone guitar hybrid cracks through after a triumphant intro. It’s sonic tricks like this that really keeps you on your toes. The contrast between the grounded verses and the soaring choruses make this my album highlight. Those choruses only get more potent as the song goes on as well.

 It flows naturally into ‘Collider’, which lives up to its name with layered guitars smashing against one another in rhythmic waves, delay timed to perfection. The drums drive the whole thing, precise but alive, never static. You can feel them steering the maelstrom rather than containing it.

Then we hit ‘Wanton’, the weird heart of the record. This is where Elliott Frazier’s playful side comes out. He apparently wanted it to sound like “a creepy ice cream truck,” and that’s exactly what it does. Off-kilter percussion, eerie melodic flickers, and a rhythm that sounds like it’s swaying on its own axis. It shouldn’t work, but it really does. It’s unsettling and addictive in equal measure.

‘High Halcyon’ appears as a sort of come-down. There’s something almost Beach House-like in the way the melody unfolds, unhurried but radiant. Guitars sound more purposeful here. Driving with distortion rather than all out fuzz. It lends this track a cohesiveness in those choruses that lift it even higher.

Then ‘Memory Swerver’ arrives with its pop sensibilities on full display. The crystalline verses sound like something you’d hear on a Robin Guthrie production. Crisp, chiming yet full and rounded. Then the punchy chorus with its killer hook comes in and seeps it away, if only momentarily.

The album comes to a close with ‘Sirens’, tying everything together. It’s measured, deliberate, a long fade into abstraction. The guitars ring out like a far-off alarm you can’t quite locate, the bass pulsing like a heartbeat. It’s a really punchy way to wrap things up and it doesn’t resolve so much as dissolve, leaving you caught in the afterglow.

Phantom Wave call Echoes Unknown a dreamy way station, a resting point before moving on to other worlds, and that description fits. It feels like a pause to look back at what’s been built. All the noise, melody, and emotion, before drifting forward again. It’s their most complete statement yet, a record that balances scale with intimacy, density with light. Every listen reveals another texture hiding beneath the haze, another small human detail caught between the echoes.

Echoes Unknown is out now via Shoredive Records. You can pick it up on the Phantom Wave Bandcamp page and on vinyl from the Shore Dive Records Elasticstage page.

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