ALBUM REVIEW: Time Will Take Us All – Entheos

Tech death is a notoriously crowded genre and often puts far more focus on musicianship and technical wizardry than it does memorable hooks. With the release of their latest album Time Will Take Us All and stripping back the member count to just two (vocalist Chaney Crabbs and multi-instrumentalist Navene Koperweis), ENTHEOS have, by virtue of needing fewer compromises, crafted an album that makes strides towards breaking outside of the rigid confines of the genre and even making something – dare we say it – progressive. 

Absolute Zero opens the album like a battering ram; Crabb’s guttural roar front and centre atop churning guitar and prominent bass. In that sense, this is very typical of tech death; the guitars and bass are almost clinically separated and are audible totally separate from one another. The effect is certainly an acquired taste; it can feel overly busy as a result, but tech death has never been a genre to shy away from the everything all at once approach. 

Something ENTHEOS do particularly well is in the flowing nature of the album; as much as individual moments can judder, or be stop-start, the album is clearly designed to be experienced as a whole. Absolute Zero ends in suspense, but that’s carried over into next track In Purgatory and even reappears in The Interior Wilderness. In particular, the latter packs in some FALLUJAH-esque atmospheric leads that inject a much-needed sense of melody, as does Absolute Zero in its midsection. 

At other times, the band decide to drop the level of complexity and go for overpowering groove, such as in I Am The Void, in which Crabb also makes forays into melodic, sung vocals. It’s at this point the album really comes into its own; until now, it’s been competent certainly, but otherwise unremarkable tech death that many other bands have done before and are still doing. The inclusion of melody and true opening up of their sonic world comes not a moment too soon. 

That’s not to say the entire first half is paint-by-numbers; Oblivion, in particular, paints in interesting shades of groove and even some cavernous roars reminiscent more of SYLOSIS and doomier atmosphere. Certainly the most interesting material is in the second half though. Darkest Day keeps the technicality and drenches it in hardcore swagger, practically daring two-steppers to get in the pit with those already hurling themselves around. The Sinking Sun goes the opposite direction entirely as the longest song on the album, leaning heavily into those FALLUJAH comparisons and progressive metal over its near seven-and-a-half-minute runtime. 

ENTHEOS were, prior to this, something of an expected quantity. Reliable tech death that didn’t stray too far from the hallmarks of the genre; with Time Will Take Us All, they do at least start to  break away from that. The clinical production is still there, meaning the emotional impact of songs that deal with mental health and its impacts (such as Absolute Zero amongst others) is sadly somewhat neutered in favour of machine-like precision. That said, instrumentally it’s strong and there’s a deft balance struck between technicality and more simple, atmospheric melodicism that stops it becoming monotonous. Hopefully they keep pushing on those elements of the sound in future and leaving typical tech death behind them. 

Rating: 7/10

Time Will Take Us All is set for release on March 3rd via Metal Blade Records.

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