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Progressive Rock CD Reviews

Luke Marantz + Simon Jermyn

Echoes

Review by Gary Hill

This is an intriguing set. It’s all instrumental, and the two musicians whose names are included above are the main performers here. Josh Dion does provide drums at times, though. Luke Marantz handles various keyboards, while Simon Jermyn plays guitar and bass. This music is definitely art music. A lot of times it leans toward fusion, but there are a lot of other things at play. The titles and track divisions seem almost arbitrary because there are stops mid-track on a lot of these that gives way to what is seemingly a different piece and just about everything here segues from one track to the next. That makes this a little weird for track by track reviews, but since we do them that way at MSJ, here we are.

This review is available in book (paperback and hardcover) form in Music Street Journal: 2026  Volume 1. More information and purchase links can be found at: garyhillauthor.com/Music-Street-Journal-2026.
Track by Track Review
Echoes

This comes in atmospheric. It gradually works out to more mainstream stuff built around the piano. It’s creative and artistic, but also quite melodic.

Country

More energized, this has some cool proggy things at play in the arrangement. It’s a powerful number that still focuses mostly around the piano.

Hovering

This one features a lot more guitar in the mix. It works from proggier things to more fusion territory. This is art music from start to finish. It’s also such a classy piece of music. The guitar soloing on this is so melodic and tasteful, but also on fire.

Echoes II

I dig the echoey sort of ambience built into this. It’s a piano dominated number. It’s also very classy. I really love the intricate piano work on this thing. This piece is fairly extensive (almost five minutes) and has a lot of different sections and movements. It also has some cool fusion guitar work.

Shori

Piano and guitar work together in a more traditional jazz type arrangement early. After a false ending, this comes in atmospheric and trippy. It really has a lot of art music weirdness at play, but also some great piano elements. The piano really paints some powerful melodic strokes as it continues building upward and pulls it into the next piece.

Light Scatters Green

Driving piano is on the menu as this gets under way. Guitar rises up as it continues. This has more of a mainstream fusion sound. At times there are sounds that feel like birds. There is sort of a false ending and a rather classically tinged, dramatic, but mellower movement takes over beyond that. It seems to segue directly into the next number.

Echoes III

Trippy atmospherics hold this with piano added to the mix as it continues. After an intensified movement we get another false ending. Then the track is reborn as more of a melodic and mainstream, yet still tentative, fusion arrangement. This segues into the next piece.

Passages

At over seven minutes long, this is the epic of the set. It starts by continuing themes from the previous number, feeling just a little like a fusion version of some Grateful Dead space music to me. As it continues to grow, that reference becomes more valid. Around the halfway mark it turns toward some of the most rocking stuff on the whole disc, with a bit of a pounding groove. It continues to evolve and grow from there. This thing turns much more rocking as it keeps building, yet it’s also decidedly fusion-based. Again, that takes us straight into the next number.

Echoes IV

The rocking vibes of the previous piece are continued as this marches forward. That eventually ends and then we get a new mode that is mellower and more melodic, based on keyboards at first.

 
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