Prog Metal ENTROPIST Introduces Its Concept Album "The Vision" Through “Creation”!

"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 t hat 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 go od 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 apa rt. I’m really proud of what we’ve created here, and look forward to sharing what else we’ve got in store! Solomon Smith Guitar/Vocals Entropist.

About The Album Artwork:

The artwork was painted on canvas by my amazingly talented wife, Shannon Bortfeldt. It’s an impressionistdepiction of the defining moments that open up the album’s story, as well as a powerful compliment to darker themesof dreadand disillusionment that pervade its first arcs. I believe the artwork speaks better than I can to the intenseemotional concepts here, and in the interest of leaving the concept a bit up to interpretation, I’ll simply say that thefirst few songs are toldfrom the perspective of the entities seen there. Solomon Smith-Vocalist

About the album as a whole (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):

A powerful and visionary progressive metal odyssey. Largely through-composed, the album explores a vast array ofsoundscapes andflavors of metal to tell its intertwined stories.Solomon Smith-guitar/vocals

Track by Track (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):

1. Intense Warmth-This song is one of my favorites because it just keeps building up throughout the majority of thesong. It begins ina relatively traditional manner with a clean guitar intro, but I think the moment the listener hearsthe walls of vocals come in, it’s clear they’re listening to something different. It’s got some big chords that come witha melodic bass solo before somefast double bass kicks us into the main riff of the song. The driving riff suddenlytransitions into this huge breakdown before the song gradually cools off. The song is largely written from theperspective of one of the characters from the album’s conceptbecoming disillusioned with his world, and dreamingabout the possibilities of changing it.

2. Devour Us-This song gives the listener a moment to breathe by starting with an acoustic guitar intro with abeautiful violin solo played by a friend of ours before jumping right back into some technical metal riffing. I thinkthis is one of the more unique main riffs, with guitars jumping between unison and harmony parts with the basswhile the drums hold everything together. The song then slows down for a bridge with odd time signatures anddroning guitars, while Parker and I trade off call-and-response vocals before kicking into a faster, thrashy part.Everything stops for a moment as the vocals summon the void itself before Will rips this nasty but tasteful solo forthe outro. Devour Us is where the album’s concept and connection to the real world start to blur a bit, relating tothemes of struggling with seclusion, mundanity, and futility

3. I Hunger-A real crusher, this one. Meant to represent the voice ofthe all-consuming void, this song is arguablythe heaviest on the album: a slow, sinister, and powerful wall of sound. It features heavily downtuned guitars and islargely driven by the drums and vocals. We actually wrote the lyrics for this one before everything else, writing therest around, making it all sound as colossal as possible.

4. The Ritual-This song comes in with an eerie vibe, with the chords and melodies all creating a slightly unsettledatmosphere, accompanied by the sounds of strange creatures calling in the dark. We then dive into a fast, techypassage with brutal screams, blast beats, the like that culminates into a heavily syncopated breakdown where Parkerand I trade off vocal parts. The bridge gives the listener a chance to breathe, with the bass holding down a pensivechord progression under lush vocal harmonies featuring everyone in the band. The drums kick us into a fun littlepart that brings us right back into the heaviness for the outro. The lyrics are largely correlated to the concept, butexplore the unease and potentially devastating consequences of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

5. Desert of Limbo-This song is where the album really begins to diverge from more traditional metal sounds. Thestructure comes in waves, starting with an evocative clean passage in a deceptively pleasant odd time signature. Wedecided to get pretty experimental with the vocal melodies and harmonies here, and I think it came together well withthe unique rhythms and chord changes the bass holds down. The song quickly gains energy and explodes into abreakdown with fierce vocals on top before flipping into this techy part with a tapping solo over a complex chuggingfrom the rhythm section. We bring it down a bit for a tasty drum and bass part with some really echoey screamsbefore transitioning into some duelling guitar solos. We hand it back to the bass and drums for a fun instrumentalpart that leads into a heavy, slow breakdown before the song climaxes with big chords and vocal harmonies. Thissong is really about both losing yourself in the trials and complexities of life, but also finding yourself through thepaths you take.

6. The Wandering-The instrumental track! This one explores some of the craziest parts and time signatures andgives the rhythm section a chance to show off a bit, though we aimed to keep it as tasteful as we could throughout. It’sgot tasty bass licks, fun guitar harmonies, tricky rhythms, unique chord changes and, of course, some sick solos. Welove playing this one live, and it gives us an opportunity to mix things up with some improv.

7. Creation-The beginning of the final arc of the album. Sonically and lyrically, there’s a clear contrast here, thethemes related to making something new and bringing about theworld you want to see. This one starts with some bigand bright-sounding chords where the drums give the whole thing momentum that drives us into some proggy introriffage. This ultimately settles into a Parker delivering a meditative verse part where Willplays this tasty guitar lickover some percussive bass and drums. We quickly build it up into this powerful driving part with a combination ofchords and djenty rhythms before taking it into the second verse. The second verse leads into a huge chorus partwithsoaring vocals and huge chords that climax into one of the heaviest breakdowns on the album. We bring it back tothe chorus chord change for this gorgeous and victorious solo from Will before closing out with some heavy rhythmsand huge crowd vocals.

8. Revelation-This song represents both the beginning and end of an era for me, to say the least. It’s about theelation of self-actualization, the feeling of having not only overcome one’s challenges and personal failings, butbringing forward positivemovement in the world. It encapsulates and concludes both the album’s concept and thestory of its own realization. It’s easily our most ambitious song, with all kinds of thematic and lyrical callbacks to theother songs on the album, the wildest riffs and rhythms, and just over a 14-minute runtime. The composition rangesfrom triumphant guitar lead harmonies to complex chugging rhythms, to spicy drum & bass parts, to soaringchoruses. The whole thing ends in an epic and emotional passage that I think tiesa perfect bow on the album.

STORY ANGLES / FUN FACTS ABOUT THE BAND

1. We met back in 2013 while going to college in Greeley, CO. Solomon, Jeremy, and Parker were all roommates atthe time, and our drummer, Matt, was our back door neighbor. We all bonded quickly over our love for prog metaland djent. We would carpool downto Denver for shows all the time and would always get together to jam newalbums together when they came out. This eventually turned into us jamming together. Solomon had written a fewsongs at the time (some of which are on this album), and we ended up setting up Matt’s drum set in our living roomso we could learn them together. We later all moved away from Greeley, and the music quickly came to a halt. Yearslater, when COVID hit, Solomon ended up rekindling the music. He hit everyone up, and we startedgetting back intouch with each other. Lots of long nights chatting in Discord, lots of sharing of guitar pro files, bouncing ideas backand forth. This was the start of Entropist. We ended up meeting Will through a mutual friend, which took Entropisttoa new level with his guitar style and creativity. We had a handful of songs written, we now had a full band ofdevoted guys, and we knew that this had potential. Parker-Vocals

2. We ended up choosing Jamie King to mix/master this album because we are bigfans of Between the Buried andMe and The Contortionist, and both of those bands have worked with him. Some of our favorite albums of all timewere mixed by Jamie King, and it was a big goal of ours to make sure he got his hands on this album. Needless tosay,the final product far exceeded our expectations. Parker-Vocals

3. We did not originally intend to have group vocals with all 5 of us members on the album, but during the recordingprocess, we all decided on the spot that we should give it a try. The group yelling/chanting at the end of “Creation”was added on the spot, as well as the layered vocal harmonies during the bridge on “The Ritual”. Parker-Vocals

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