Review: Entheos Unleash a Flurry of Highly Refined Technicality on An End to Everything
I don’t know about you, but my first exposure to Entheos was when they opened for Archspire on the Tech Trek Tour two years ago, and they completely blew me away. Their performance was laser-focused, airtight, and highly energetic regardless of how technically demanding the music was, thanks largely to the commanding presence of their dynamic frontwoman Chaney Crabb. I left that show thoroughly impressed (or inspired, if you will), and I knew that this was a band that I needed to keep an eye on.
Since that night, I’ve been seeing these guys everywhere, with the core duo of Crabb and drummer extraordinaire Navene Koperweis, formerly of Animosity and Fleshwrought, cranking out tons of videos and maintaining a steady social media presence, not to mention the huge US tour with As I Lay Dying and Chelsea Grin which they just wrapped up earlier this summer. Taking it easy doesn’t seem to be in these guys’ repertoire, and despite its title, the Entheos train shows no signs of slowing down with the upcoming release of their newest EP An End to Everything.
The opening title track is supremely groovy, if a little reserved, but it also demonstrates the entirety of Chaney Crabb’s impressive vocal range, flowing seamlessly between beefy lows to shrieking highs and even a breathy clean singing chorus. Her lyrical patterns are very rapid-fire and percussive as well, lending an extra punch to an already hard-hitting opener clearly designed to get the blood flowing. She carries the majority of the weight on this particular track, but luckily this is merely a launchpad and not a plateau.
The following two songs, “All for Nothing” and “Life in Slow Motion”, get progressively faster and more technical as they go. The former slowly but steadily builds a conga line of punishing grooves around an eerie opening melody to a satisfying climax, while the latter kicks things up yet another notch by pushing the tempo to obscene levels at certain points, but with a healthy dose of melody peppered in to shake things up. Koperweis’s attention to detail as far as pacing and song structure, as well as the potent synergy between him and his partner, is both notable and commendable.
However, my personal favorite is the penultimate track “A Thousand Days”, which, in my opinion, is the perfect encapsulation of all the best elements of this EP. It starts off slow and menacing, then bursts through the door with a whirlwind of blast beats and chugging riffs, it’s got a heartfelt solo that favors emotion over mindless shredding, and even though Chaney does have another clean singing segment, this time around it’s noticeably harsher and more monotone, locking on to one powerful note as opposed to lilting around in a more defined melody. That might sound like an odd thing to say at first, but blurring the line between singing and screaming is just as challenging as carrying a tune, if not more so, especially when that single note still works beautifully every time and never feels stale. The rest of her singing sounds pretty, don’t get me wrong, and her mastery over multiple different styles is very technically impressive, but I just think it’s so badass when you can literally hear the strain in someone’s voice as they fight to keep things under control with everything they’ve got.
The closing track “Return to Me” was the only one that didn’t really grab me; not because it’s “bad” by any stretch, but it just feels like a bit of a wind-down when contrasted with everything that came before it. The drums are fast and the riffs are perfectly beefy, but at the same time, I feel like I’d been thoroughly spoiled by every other song having something in it that I didn’t see coming at some point or another, so the fact that this was the closer made it feel just a tiny bit anticlimactic. Not enough to spoil the experience, mind you, I’m aware that I’m nitpicking and being overly harsh, but this is what tends to happen when you hold things under a microscope. I’m just an incorrigible stickler for pacing, and I feel like the impact would have been much greater if the last two songs were to swap places in the running order.
The only other “issue” I had, if you can even call it that, was that I found the guitar tone to be a little overly compressed and sterile for my taste. But then again, precision is everything with this particular style of music, and a super chunky, heavily distorted tone would drown out a lot of the nuance, so even though it wasn’t my particular cup of tea, I understand why the decision was made to go that route. On the other hand, I absolutely adored how the snare drum sounds, so I feel like that balances things out pretty well. Seriously, I could listen to an entire ASMR video of just that immensely satisfying, tightly tuned pop that somehow sounds ten times bigger than it actually is without drowning anything else out. That’s the kind of dragon that most drummers chase for their entire career but never quite manage to catch, but somehow Navene fucking nailed it, which doesn’t surprise me, because the dude’s an animal (get it?).
Long story short, if you like your tech death with a healthy smattering of breakdowns and a tasteful pinch of melody, then this EP is sure to scratch that itch wonderfully. These guys are rock solid musicians armed with experience, passion, and an admirable work ethic, and all of that has contributed to the wave that they are currently (and deservedly) riding high on. It may be called An End to Everything, but all signs indicate that Entheos are just getting warmed up, and I am here for it.
An End to Everything drops Friday, October 25 via Metal Blade Records, pre-order your copy here
