The album name might be a mouthful, but AWOLNATION’s My Echo, My Shadow, My Covers & Me, is freaking excellent!
It doesn’t feel like any time at all has passed since the band’s last full length release, Angel Miners & the Lightening Riders, came out, but that’s what happens in a pandemic. Suddenly two years pass and AWOLNATION is releasing a covers album! As a Youtube comment I saw for one of the tracks (I’ll reveal later) said, “another great one for the ‘List of Things I Didn’t Know I Needed But Got Anyway’,” but I’ll apply that to the whole album. This thing even got me liking songs by artists I’ve never even heard of! And some of these songs also go back decades! I’m sure older audiences will know most of the tracks, but I hope this opens things up to a younger generation.
Aside from the song selections, I also really enjoyed seeing who all the guest vocalists were! As the songs were, some of these guests were totally random! “Drive” (originally by The Cars) is the only track on the whole album not featuring someone else, and it works perfectly, but so do all of the other collaborations. What I learned from this album was how insane Aaron Bruno’s vocal range is! This man can harmonize and compliment the most polar opposite singers! Case in point, “Take a Chance on Me” features Jewel (SO RANDOM!) and they sound amazing together, while “Material Girl” and “Maniac” featuring Taylor Hanson and Conor Mason (of Nothing But Thieves) respectively, sound incredible! These are all artists I would have never in a million years pictured working together and sounding so damn good while doing it! You have to know that Youtube comment was about that Jewel collab, though.
Those names, along with Tim McIlrath of Rise Against and Brandon Boyd of Incubus, were the most familiar to me, but there were a handful of new artists I’d never heard of before lending expertise on some other awesome covers. I personally really enjoyed Hyro the Hero helping out on the Biz Markie cover of “Just a Friend,” and Elohim’s pretty rendition of “Flagpole Sitta.” The chorus of the latter could be used in a movie someday, I think, so look out! “Eye in the Sky” featuring Beck (!) was even more melodic, and he and Bruno’s voices really complimented each other. It wasn’t necessarily my speed of song, but there’s no denying how smooth this track sounded.
Overall, not a single song on here was bad. Not by a long shot. Perhaps “Wind of Change” and “Alone Again (Naturally)” were two of the tracks that didn’t grab me as much as the others, but they were still delightful to listen to. “Alone Again (Naturally)” surprised me even more by featuring country group, Midland! It’s crazy how all of these different genred artists all fit together in one space! I think my favorite tracks off the whole album included opening track, “Beds are Burning” featuring Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath. I didn’t know the original by Midnight Oil, but this cover was so infectious from the jump. Even the comments noted that this was a superior cover! “Waiting Room” featuring Grouplove was another instant hit for me. Similarly, I didn’t not know the original rendition by the band Fugazi, but I loved hearing Grouplove lend their vocals to this harder rock song.
This was an incredible album and you’d be a damn fool if you didn’t give it a listen!