ENTROPIA

I'll give some brief info about the band that has surpassed all others in the genre of prog-metal. A band that is always looking down on their past releases and always seeking to push the envelope further.this is much different then any other prog-metal band.unless you count Wastefall, a band that wears the PoS logo on their shoulders. Their music heavily relies on compositional skills and excellent vocal work by Daniel Gildenlow, who was become my idol in music.

Believe it or not this band was formed in 1987 under the name Reality.ten years before the debut album!! I'm not going through all the line-up changes but if you couldn't guess already.Daniel Gildenlow was the creator of this band and does just about all of the work (I will specifically mention where there is more credit due to just him).

So the line-up for this debut contains almost all the members of the band until the post-BE era except for the guitarist. Daniel Gildenlow is on guitar and vocal duties, he also wrote all the lyrics for this album and composed all the songs except for '! (Forward)', 'People Passing By' (Part II), 'Stress', 'Revival' and 'To the End', which was also co-written by Daniel Magdic. Daniel Magdic is also on guitar and vocals and this is the only PoS album that features him. Johan Langell is on drums and vocals. He is one of the smoothest drummers there is and has an excellent use of polyrhythms. Kristoffer Gildenlow, brother of Daniel, is on the bass and does vocal work as well. Finally, Fredrik Hermansson is on the keyboards. You should get the album to see a picture of him with long hair, pretty crazy.

There are 13 tracks on the album, I won't bore the reader describing all of them, plus since most of the PoS albums are conceptual and whole pieces of work, they shouldn't really be decomposed to separately rated tracks.

This is about as strong as a debut album can get for a band. This is also arguably their most diverse album too. It goes from very aggressive tracks like the albums opener to a vocal solo spot with some guitar accompaniment like in the beautiful 'Oblivion Ocean'. The guitar work is also quite intricate; the presence is always there throughout the album. It is very intricate because it is playing in consistently changing in time signatures, intermediately challenging yet wonderful solos and very strong breakdowns with interesting chord arrangements and arpeggios completing the feel of this album. The diversity that lies in the tracks are the near Dream Theater like instrumentals, extremely complex melody arrangements, jazzy solos and some of the best new vocal work done in quite some time. The vocals remind me of Geoff Tate from Queensryche except having the range and tendencies of Mike Patton of Mr.Bungle and Fantomas.

This album is easily 4 stars. It took me a while to get into this, if a fan or someone getting into this band is having trouble getting into this, there is an easy solution. Pain of Salvation's live album 12:5 has many Entropia tracks put into acoustic arrangements. The tracks truly shine; the concept is more easily understood because you are not bombarded with loud drums and guitars. Going back to the album after that will make it more understandable and a better listening experience.guaranteed.

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