A couple of years ago, I reviewed The Calm Beneath the Noise by The Echo Veils, a very talented duo from Mexico – you can read my review by clicking on the button below.

Now, we have Roses Are Dreams, and I must say that this beautiful album is right up there as a favourite of 2026, Poli Elizondo and Guillermo Garcia providing us with a feast of melodic progressive rock. They are joined here by Marco Renteria on bass, and Andrew Joseph & Scott Apted on drums.

The album is available at https://theechoveils.bandcamp.com/album/roses-are-dreams and has seven new pieces of music, the whole striking me as something of a cathartic exercise in music releasing emotional stress, and very cleverly exploring the vulnerability of man.

The title track starts us off with a young lady dreaming of escaping from home, the drugs and forlorn hope. Elizondo is a very talented guitarist, and from the off, his riffs light up the big blue sky, and Garcia provides us with some gentle synthscapes before his voice enters the fray, emotional, delicate where required, but also capable of sending powerful messages, for instance here where the roads are leading nowhere, trying to cope with a harsh life. I also like the female harmonies. This opener sets the scene for all that follows perfectly, an adventurous panorama of music rooted in the symphonic rock tradition, but with that South American ear for groove and accessibility.

Rising Sand is an achingly honest portrait of internal struggle, and the dependence such issues create on those who love us. The rhythm section shines on this, with a magnificent bass riff at the end, some nice jazzy grooves, in a track which has a struggle between pretty chords & soaring synths, and melancholic subject matter, and it manages this bipolarity well. The guitar solo drips with feeling. Hear for yourself with the track embedded below.

A Dark Place – outside in the night air, smoking, the opium, the demons, the darkness taking over, the Prodigal Son, who will always be forgiven, treated with compassion and love by the father (material and spiritual). This is a mournful song, of that there is no doubt, the orchestration decidedly low key, the piano notes almost dystopian, a modern equivalent of Waters in his darkest place on side three of The Wall – indeed, the guitar riffs, which are lower in the mix than elsewhere, do remind me of Gilmour’s work there, and when the main solo bursts forth from the speaker, it is achingly blues-infused.

Turmoil is self-explanatory, missing his love, with the resultant mental chaos. It is the shortest track here, single length just shy of four minutes. I note the lovely piano accompanying a heartfelt vocal, the mellotron creating a mood, the acoustic guitar a nice counterpoint to the downbeat strings, and yet another quite gorgeous guitar solo is created, albeit too short.

Keep Breathing urges patience, for escape, and ultimately redemption, will come. There is a Celtic feel to proceedings at the off, deeply pastoral, some very impactful drums against some voices and effects straining at the leash. A track which could have come from Scandinavia in its description of darkness of the soul, deep choral chanting, and the band rock out when calling upon the voice of his love, and these passages are fierce in their intensity, the guitar crying and swirling.

Burn as One calls for the joining of two hearts. Vocally, this is the performance of the album, full of feeling and telling a story of longing and hope so well, and the piano especially complements this, the orchestration prominent in a piece of music now considered by me to be a candidate for “track of the year”. I really like the transformation from the pastoral start to the almost Purplesque outburst of rock three minutes in, and the contrasts in mood on this piece are very well done, and the delicate guitar solo when it comes is ghostly and beautiful in turn, the voices rising to the top of the emotional scale. Embedded at the foot of this review – stunning music.

We close with The Waiting Game, the transcendence, the journey begins, the waiting is over, keeping the faith paying off. The mood is now lighter, looking and moving forward, shedding the skin and forgetting about the past, the guitar almost playful, the soundscapes released, no longer casting a shadow, the voice grateful and enticing, the keys a light jazz touch leading us into the final telling of the journey, and the final third becomes a glorious anthemic procession, uplifting, freedom-loving, beautifully cathartic, a pleasure to have filling your senses.

It is sometimes said that in order to appreciate peace, you must live through some pain, angst, and this summarises this fine album in a nutshell, because the very dark mood as the contemplation of freedom begins is replaced by the joy of appreciation of life by the close, and when you consider it in this context, then you, too, will appreciate the richness of the dark passages as a necessary step to musical fulfilment.

Another winner from Mexico. The Echo Veils have become one of this website’s favourite modern acts.