ALBUM REVIEW: Total – Entropia
Poland’s ENTROPIA have managed to develop a reputation for crafting incredibly progressive music over the fifteen years since their formation. Writing in a style that incorporates black metal, sludge and post-metal amongst other influences, the Olesnica based five-piece have gradually been perfecting their sound with each subsequent album, with 2018’s Vacuum pushing their already impressive sound to new creative heights. Now, close to five years later, ENTROPIA return with Total, an album that sees the shift towards longer, wider ranging music reach its culmination, and one that feels like another excellent benchmark for the band as a result.
Retox sets the tone for the record, coupling sharp, jarring guitars, frenetic drumming and haunting, ambient keyboards to create a very avant-garde, modern sound right off the bat. When the vocals kick in, they are arid shrieks and tortured howls, emotively matching up with the disjointed, acerbic qualities of the music that backs them. Although there’s a definite emphasis on discordance and intensity throughout, it still possesses a polished, catchy feel that helps lure the listener in whilst still being able to keep things relatively experimental.
Mania adopts a cleaner, hazier guitar sound, adding a hypnotic, ethereal flair into the mix. Where the previous offering drew more heavily from black metal for its core sound, this leans prominently towards weightier sludge, lending this song a heft and musical depth that makes it sound monolithic at points. The vocals, by contrast, retain the acidic edge of the last song, carving through the rest of the music like a rusty blade and peppering this robust music with a sinister, visceral zeal that complements the other elements extremely well.
Orbit lurches towards dissonance, and is not unlike the album’s opener in this regard, although everything takes on a more minimalistic approach, with cavernous drums, two duelling guitars that brilliantly blend soaring melodicism with jarring flourishes, fluid fretless bass and the same sort of spacey keyboards that featured in the preceding track’s climactic moments adding a futuristic, mechanical feel to proceedings. This does an impressive job of ebbing and flowing between the black and sludge influences, with the palpable post-metal and progressive components that underpin this whole album binding them together seamlessly.
Total is by far this album’s most expansive and sprawling offering, and it really pushes the record’s sound to more bombastic heights. Beginning as cavernous, rhythmic sludge, interwoven with slick, melodic leads, it shifts first to beguiling post-metal, with feral vocal deliveries and powerful keyboards providing a vast, atmospheric edge to the fairly jarring aspect of the guitars that defines the closing minutes of this song. The subtle blackened elements, courtesy of the vocals and some of the more vitriolic guitar lines, don’t feature as prominently as on previous tracks, allowing this music to be driven more by its dramatic moments as opposed to its aggressive ones. Final, with its airy guitars and domineering, soaring keyboard sound, is another track that is centred around its more cinematic components, making for a more sanguine feel, although it isn’t without its weightier, sludgy groove.
Total distinctly feels, when considered alongside the band’s first three albums, like it is the end point of a years-long songwriting process that finally sees the band’s sound emerge in its full, final form. Gone are the shorter, punchier offerings that were present on Vesper and Ufonaut, replaced with expansive, imaginative epics. The style and approach seems to be much more energetic and lively than its most recent predecessor, Vacuum, which explored a more minimalistic and hypnotic style than the robust and adventurous songs that feature here. More importantly, it’s easily the band’s best work to date, and will hopefully mark the starting point for more excellent albums in a similar vein in the future.
Rating: 8/10
Total is out now via Agonia Records.
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