(written by Islander)
Entropist is a Colorado progressive metal band primarily composed of people who have been friends since college days more than a decade ago. After many years of effort, they have recorded and will soon release their monumental debut album, aptly named The Vision. It is described as “a dual‑layered concept record that intertwines a fantastical narrative of demons, celestial beings, and the void with a grounded exploration of mental struggle, nihilism, and the search for meaning”.
As you can see, it’s adorned by a painting created by Shannon Bortfeldt that’s visually arresting, and it also captures the emotional and narrative weight of the story’s opening moments. It’s a fitting prelude to an extensive album that’s also colorful, repeatedly arresting, and an effective representation of the fantastical narrative that unfolds through the lyricism. We are happy to share it with you now, on the eve of its release.
L-R: Matt Gleason – Drums, Parker Kitching – Lead Vocals, Solomon Smith – Guitars/Backup Vocals, Will Vinson – Guitars, Jeremy Smith – Bass
The Vision is clearly a very ambitious work. It’s more than an hour long, and its length is a measure of how many ideas have accumulated, percolated, and evolved as Entropist’s members began jamming, drifted apart, reconnected, and added to their number.
Because it does ask a lot of listeners’ time, it may be useful as an introduction to identify the bands whom Entropist name as key influences: Between the Buried and Me, The Contortionist, Meshuggah, Karnivool, Opeth. As a further sign of those influences, they enlisted Jamie King (BTBAM, The Contortionist) to produce, mix, and master The Vision.
Although we’re not going to attempt a track-by-track discussion of the album, it does make some sense to discuss how the musical narrative begins, in part because of its connection to the cover art and in part because it does begin revealing some (but certainly not all) of Entropist’s stylistic proclivities.
The lyrics of that opening song, “Intense Warmth” (first released as a single a few years ago), introduce us to a demon protagonist in the story, who describes its emergence in “the remains of a world / once engulfed in glorious blaze” and contemplating the possibility of becoming one of “the demons of stature”, “Dawning the dance of anguish’s ecstasy / Shaking the Earth with my vacant stare”.
In the music, harmonious guitars intriguingly ring and darkly drift as a bass muses and drums vibrantly thump. But unhinged screams explode, the guitars sear and slash, the bass bubbles, and elaborate rhythmic interplays ensue. The vocals reveal malicious growls and ravenous howls as well as screams, and the fretwork frantically swirls and gloriously ripples.
As a piece of music, it’s as eye-opening as the cover art, initially mesmerizing and then exhilarating, and a pretty enticing way of ushering listeners into the rest of the album-saga.
As one more sign of the album’s elaborate maneuvers, we’ll mention that the following track “Devour Us” begins with a sublime acoustic guitar intro and an equally sublime violin solo played by a friend of the band’s — a bit of a breather before the music begins both reflecting the song’s name and giving the heads of listeners a lot of swift spins — spins that include not only eye-popping instrumental dexterity and adventurousness but also sudden tempo-and-mood changes, passionate singing mixed in with the ravenous harshness, and a thriller of a closing guitar solo.
These first two songs prove what a good idea it was to bring in the afore-mentioned Jamie King. The production displays an evenness of mix and a clarity that befits the talents of all the performers.
As mentioned, we won’t attempt to continue pawing through the tracks one by one in such detail — which would be quite an undertaking because so many things happen in each one and because each one differs in important ways from the others.
But in brief: you’ll experience the bone-breaking, Messhugah-influenced “I Hunger”; the dreamlike eeriness, twitchy freneticism, and joyful playfulness of “The Ritual” (one of the album’s most enthralling sonic shapeshifters); the exotic melodies and experimental instrumental interplay within “Desert of Limbo” (possibly the least “metal” song on the record, and one of this writer’s favorites); as well as the jazzy progginess of “The Wandering” (the album’s only instrumental-only track, and a fantastic showcase for all the band’s performance talents).
Entropist save the two longest songs for last, “Creation” (the album’s first single released this year) and the extravagant “Revelation”, which tops 14 minutes and calls back to other motifs that have previously appeared on the album; it is, standing alone, a tremendous spectacle . Both songs are well worth all the minutes they ask of you.
Well, we should cut short our own musings about this terrific album and make room for a statement by guitarist/vocalist Solomon Smith:
“This album is the culmination of over a decade of work, and we’re excited to finally be able to share it with the world! It contains a personal story that I think many can relate to, while also containing a crazy esoteric concept, for those who are into that sort of thing.
“The album as a whole covers a huge breadth of metal sound. You can hear all kinds of different influences throughout, but it all comes together as what I consider its own thing, very much. Many of the songs are relatively long, with a good bit of complexity, but I think we’ve done a good job of making everything flow in such a way that it really just brings the listener on a journey.
“It gets really heavy, but has so many unexpected and even victorious moments that I think truly set it apart. I’m really proud of what we’ve created here, and look forward to sharing what else we’ve got in store!”
Now, please enjoy The Vision. It will be released tomorrow and can be ordered at Bandcamp now.
ENTROPIST ALBUM LINEUP:
Solomon Smith – Guitar
Will Vinson – Guitar
Jeremy Smith – Bass
Matt Gleason – Drums
Parker Kitching – Vocals
Cecily Meade – Violin
PRE-ORDER:
https://entropistband.bandcamp.com/album/the-vision
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https://entropistband.com/
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