Pain of Salvation - Entropia

"One of the most original progressive metal albums."

"....."

That's what I first thought after listening to Pain of Salvation's debut album for the first time. It was really unlike anything else I'd ever heard, and I didn't know what to think. Entropia is such an eclectic synthesis of so many different musical styles that it truly is original and, well, progressive. That wouldn't be worth much if the songs were badly written, but Pain of Salvation is headed by one of the most brilliant writers/vocalists in the genre.

Most progressive metal copies Dream Theater's Images & Words album, and that gets real old real quick. But some bands, like PoS, actually bring fresh ideas to the genre. Yes, Entropia's got long songs, melody shifts aplenty, weird time changes, and varied song structure, but none of these things are really "progressive" in and of themselves. Being progressive is about pushing boundaries on musical composition and musicianship. Entropia does this. This is unique album.

This innovation comes with its challenges, but if you don't enjoy challenging music you should probably skip this review and this band entirely. I found the album album quite hard to get into because it is so different. Also, sometimes the implementation of so many styles sometimes seems to have been done in a sort of random way, with no real regard to how it fit in the context of the song. There are some awkward herky-jerky musical moments where flow of the song becomes disjointed and suffers. It mostly works ("Revival", "!", for instance), but sometimes it doesn't.

Despite some criticism, the album is amazing overall. Melody changes are seamless and mostly make sense. Listen to how a song can naturally move from a chugging and vicious guitar riff to a surreal jazzy interlude and you can't help but be amazed. With Entropia, PoS took a chunk of metal and tossed it into the blender with everything from jazz, symphonic prog rock, extreme metal, funk, among other things (most of which can't be individually identified because they are implemented very well, but you know they are there). It's a weird mix, but it's also weird that it works so well.

The vocalist might be an acquired taste for some; like the music, he uses a huge variety of styles, with a delivery running the range between soaring broadway-esque moments and vicious metal growls. I'm not sure who to compare him to, since he's not really like anyone else. There's no denying that this guy has range and power. My only problem is that he sometimes tries to sing far above his range and he loses power at really high notes, where his voice just stops sounding good. (He has improved upon this on later albums.) One thing you'd probably never guess is that this guy's European...there is only a slight trace of an accent and the lyrics are very strong. Since Europe is well-known for its bleak wasteland of power metal where lyrics are utterly bad, Entropia's effective poetry is a nice surprise. Speaking of the lyrics, the disc is a concept album of sorts. It doesn't progress in a story per se, but rather it's a sort of commentary dealing with the impact of war on people (I think).

Unless you've heard other PoS albums, you've probably never heard anything like this. Compared to other PoS albums, it is more experimental and diverse than One Hour by the Concrete Lake (which is more song-oriented to my ears), and less dramatic and "lush" than The Perfect Element. Entropia is like Remedy Lane in that both albums are rhythmically extremely sophisticated and diverse, but Remedy Lane is much more personal lyrically. Either way, I think all progmetal fans should listen to this at least once...love it or hate it, it will probably change the way you think about the genre.