Track By Tracks: Hollow Leg - Dust And Echoes (2025)

Dust and Echoes came together through two separate recording sessions spaced over a year, each forming its own distinct EP (Dust and Echoes), but designed to work both independently and as a full-length album. The project showcases Hollow Leg’s wide-ranging influences—from classic metal, thrash, grunge, and death metal to early prog and even yacht rock—all bonded by a shared love of heavy music. With members from Bloodlet, Caribou King, Junior Bruce, and others, Hollow Leg crafts a sound that is both familiar and forward-looking.

Dust

1. Poison Bite:

Kicking off Dust with a thick, sludgy atmosphere, "Poison Bite" taps back into Hollow Leg’s earliest doom-laden roots. Slow-moving but driving, the song's dark lyrical themes explore disturbing aspects of human behavior, delivered with heavy, no-frills conviction. It’s been a live staple long before its official release—check out the video here.

2. Sick Days:

"Sick Days" swings harder, leaning into a rock 'n' roll vibe with more prominent clean vocals. While musically more upbeat, the lyrics stay grounded in brutal themes: war, the brutality of mankind, and humanity’s darker instincts.

2. Funeral Storms:

With a groovy, grunge-tinged heaviness, "Funeral Storms" thickens the atmosphere. Vocally heavier and lyrically apocalyptic, this track calls down fire and brimstone in a biblical vision of the end of days.

3. Another Day Dying:

Energy ramps up here, pulling from hardcore influences to create a relentless drive throughout. Layered vocal styles give it texture and urgency. The outro slides into a spaced-out, psychedelic haze, thick with smoke and noise, leaving listeners at the peak of humanity’s descent into madness and unconsciousness.

4. Holy Water:

Stretching out and slowing down, "Holy Water" serves as a vibey, apocalyptic closer to Dust. With gradual builds, added percussion like congas and rainsticks, and a focus on dynamics, it feels like the soundtrack to the absolute end of civilization. The imagery of a "last tribe" surviving a destroyed world sets the stage for the transition into Echoes.

Echoes

5. Last Tribe:

Opening Echoes, "Last Tribe" picks up the narrative with a mid-to-upper tempo bounce and intricate vocal harmonies. The track meanders through several twists, ending in a synth-like, guitar-driven climax that plants the phrase "emerging from Dust and Echoes" into the listener’s mind. Lyrically, it acts as a "title track," imagining survival and rebuilding in a dead world.

6. Bury Our Kings:

A crashing drum fill launches into one of the EP's standout riffs. "Bury Our Kings" rides a heavy, blues-drenched metal groove. Written well before its release, it's become a live show staple—and for good reason. It’s pure, undeniable riff worship.

7. Red Skies:

Another day, another apocalypse. "Red Skies" imagines humanity giving up on Earth and shipping off to Mars to escape the wreckage we’ve created. The track is slower, groove-laden, and follows a punchy, verse/chorus-driven rock structure. Recently added to Hollow Leg's live set—check out the video here—it hits hard and fast.

8. Ride the Wave / Dig the Grave:

The longest and most dynamic track on Echoes, "Ride the Wave/Dig the Grave" could be seen as either two connected parts or one sprawling journey. It traces the arc of life—riding the waves of time before the inevitable end. Musically it’s the most adventurous ride on the record, moving from an energetic, twisty rocker into a doom-gaze, space rock-influenced finale, showing off one of the band’s deeper influences.

Dust and Echoes was a true experiment in duality for Hollow Leg—intended to be experienced either separately or as a complete journey. Whether you start with Dust or Echoes, the record unfolds in powerful, unexpected ways. It’s Hollow Leg’s most varied yet cohesive work to date, and proof that sometimes, the sum is just as powerful as the parts.