Denver instrumental post-metallers Only Echoes released new studio album »Born Adrift«; out now via Braeburn Records!
Denver, Colorado based instrumental post-metal band Only Echoes presents their sophomore studio album, »Born Adrift«, which was just released this on August 14th, 2026 via Braeburn Records.
Tracklist:
01. Born Adrift
02. Tempest
03. So Tightly Bound
04. Inter
05. Steps Ahead Of Drowning
06. Shimmering Death
Courtesy of C Squared Music:
Denver instrumental post-metal band Only Echoes return with »Born Adrift«, a six-song, 35-minute journey through survival, uncertainty, and the strange momentum that keeps a person moving through hostile waters. Out August 14, 2026 via Braeburn Records, the album expands the band’s heavy, cinematic language into something vast and immersive, balancing crushing riffs, patient atmosphere, and wordless storytelling.
Written and refined over years of live performance, the songs on »Born Adrift« feel road-tested in the truest sense. Several pieces have been part of Only Echoes’ live set for more than two years, giving the band time to shape each movement until it carried the right weight both on stage and in the studio. Recorded at All Aces Studio with Austin Minney producing, engineering, and mixing, the album captures a band following an internal narrative without relying on lyrics to explain it.
That narrative begins in the open water. The title track, »Born Adrift«, opens the record with immediate force, setting the tone for an album that feels caught between desperation and resolve. It is the sound of being lost, but still fighting. The track’s heaviest moments suggest a struggle already underway, while its scale points toward the larger emotional terrain of the album: endurance, fear, motion, and the choice to keep going.
From there, »Tempest« widens the horizon. The longest song on the record, it moves like a storm system, shifting between difficult passages, moments of release, and towering peaks. It serves as one of the album’s clearest statements of purpose, showing Only Echoes pushing their songwriting into more expansive territory while still keeping the emotional thread intact. »So Tightly Bound« follows with a darker, more anxious energy, building a sense of capture and escape before arriving at a triumphant final stretch.
At the center of the album, »Inter« opens the second side with a synth-driven passage that pulls motifs from »Tempest« into a more mournful space. Its pulsing Moog textures and guitar solo act as a breath before »Steps Ahead Of Drowning«, the album’s most reflective track. Released as the first single on May 13, 2026 with an accompanying music video, »Steps Ahead Of Drowning« turns the album’s central image toward survival. It moves from calm to weight, from atmosphere to impact, carrying the feeling of staying afloat even when the pull beneath the surface feels impossible to resist.
The closing track, »Shimmering Death«, brings the journey to its most volatile point. Rather than circling back to familiar sections, the song keeps moving forward, building from layered beauty into the fastest passage on the album before ending in one of its heaviest moments. It closes »Born Adrift« with a final confrontation, a battle at sea where calm gives way to something monstrous and inescapable.
Across »Born Adrift«, Only Echoes use the tools of metal to tell a story without words. The album asks questions about perseverance, meaning, and the instinct to continue through uncertainty. Its six tracks form a sequence of scenes and emotions, inviting listeners to build their own version of the voyage. Heavy but open, cinematic but physical, »Born Adrift« is an album about rough seas, human endurance, and the fragile hope that keeps the body moving.
Order »Born Adrift« here: onlyechoes.bandcamp.com
About Only Echoes:
Only Echoes are an instrumental post-metal band from Denver, Colorado, creating heavy, cinematic music built on monumental riffs, layered guitars, clean ambience, and wordless melody. Formed in 2018, the band has spent the years since carving out a sound that feels vast without losing its shape, emotional without needing vocals, and heavy without abandoning atmosphere.
The band began with the expectation that vocals might eventually enter the picture, but when the time came to decide who would sing, no one raised a hand. The absence quickly became part of the identity. Only Echoes found that their songs could carry weight, tension, and narrative on their own, using guitars, bass, and drums to build the kind of arcs more often associated with film scores than traditional metal songs.
Their self-titled debut EP, »Only Echoes«, arrived in September 2018 and introduced the foundation of the band’s approach: longform instrumental songwriting rooted in melody, atmosphere, and heaviness. In April 2022, Only Echoes released their first full-length album, »Sunsickness«, a self-released concept album centered on the search for truth.
Since then, Only Echoes have continued to grow through relentless live work and a DIY ethic. The band has played more than 75 shows in spaces ranging from bookstores and backyards to Denver’s Bluebird Theater, where they opened for Pallbearer in 2023. Their touring history includes multiple self-booked West Coast runs in 2022, 2023, and 2025, along with a Midwest tour in 2026. They have also appeared at the inaugural Ghost Canyon Fest alongside BIG|BRAVE and have opened for Strawberry Girls and The Ongoing Concept.
The current lineup, Austin Minney on guitar, Dustin Yourishin on guitar, Ben Rosenberg on bass, and Zach Sirotkin on drums, brings together musicians also connected to Denver heavy music projects Oreyn and Victim Of Fire. Together, they push toward a form of post-metal that is both expansive and accessible, carrying the influence of Russian Circles, Pelican, Isis, Deafheaven, and God Is An Astronaut while pursuing something distinctly their own.
Only Echoes write songs that move like journeys. Their music often stretches into six, seven, or eight-minute forms, but the band’s focus remains on momentum and emotional clarity. Clean passages drift into towering riffs, melodic leads rise out of dense arrangements, and atmospheric sections give way to crushing rhythmic force. The result is instrumental post-metal that feels immersive and memorable, built for listeners who want weight, texture, and a sense of narrative movement.
Their second full-length album, »Born Adrift«, arrives August 14, 2026 via Braeburn Records. Where »Sunsickness« explored the search for truth, »Born Adrift« turns toward the search for meaning. Its visual world draws from Gustave Doré’s 1876 engraving for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, later colored and illustrated by Denver artist Celeste Hayes. That imagery mirrors the album’s emotional landscape: open water, uncertainty, perseverance, and the instinct to keep moving even when the shore is nowhere in sight.
Through »Born Adrift«, Only Echoes continue to define themselves as one of the few newer American bands carrying forward the tradition of heavy instrumental post-metal. Their music reaches for the scale of the genre’s landmark names while remaining grounded in melody, grit, and the kind of handmade dedication that has shaped the band from the beginning. Even their merch reflects that approach, with Austin Minney screen printing most of the band’s shirts at home, sometimes just hours before a show or tour.
For Only Echoes, the absence of vocals does not leave a blank space. It opens one. Their songs invite listeners into vast, riff-driven landscapes where the story is felt before it is explained, and where every movement pushes toward something just beyond the horizon.
Only Echoes is:
Austin Minney – Guitar
Dustin Yourishin – Guitar
Ben Rosenberg – Bass
Zach Sirotkin – Drums
Bojan Bidovc // music enthusiast, promoter, misanthrop and sometimes a journalist as well