Entheos – An End to Everything

Entheos has been on my radar for years. I don’t remember when I first heard about them, but mentions of the band, song snippets, and people generally being very excited about them kept whizzing past me and getting me thinking, eventually I have to try this band and see what they’re all about. With the release of “An End to Everything”, the stars finally aligned. After just a few listens, I found myself getting more and more gripped by their sound, atmosphere and lyrics, and just kept coming back to this EP.  5 songs and 20 minutes of total run time doesn’t sound like a lot, but for a first encounter with the band, this small sample was just what I needed to get me intrigued and curious about more. Plus, when you get to hear how much happens in those 20 minutes, it really doesn’t feel like a small release anymore.

I would label Entheos primarily as technical death metal or progressive death metal, but I feel like something about the drum sound and the filthier vocals could have them slightly associated with deathcore or metalcore as well. In some ways, their approach seems very straightforward, but there are a lot of subtleties that make them unique, and truly impressive.

Entheos – An End to Everything

The first thing to catch my attention was the sharpness of the sound. I feel like both the production and the band’s delivery play into making everything sound incredibly tight and precise, to the point where I feel like comparing them to Archspire. The insane technique is not the reason for that, but the incredible articulation and attack both on instruments and on vocals. Navene Kopperweis‘ drum parts feels clinical and hyper-precise, which carries the risk of becoming monotone, but I feel like the way the drums are written in terms of transitions and accents gives a very efficient groove to the songs. Double bass and blast beats punch up the high-speed technical dimension to the sound while the planted patterns often deliver strong headbang sections. Despite ludicrously technical parts, I feel like the main focus of the drums is still the efficient groove and the aggressive quality of the sound. The sliced double bass strums have to be my favourite detail (‘Return to Me’). The guitar riffs are rhythmic and even hooky in composition, but the melodic choices for the guitar parts bring that energy into a dark atmosphere, making room for more emotional  value than just the relentless aggression. The guitar solos are beautifully melodic, somewhat technical but not overdone, properly placed in the songs to maintain cohesion and add some dramatic flare, but they don’t change much in the mood of the songs, which I feel is kept constant throughout the whole release. To top it off, almost every song has an incredibly tasty breakdown, not too predictable, not exaggerating the aggression or slowing down like deathcore musicians would, but using fantastic rhythmic play to keep things slightly interesting and unpredictable even when it’s made perfectly clear that it’s headbang time. I love the way they can keep these moments so seamlessly integrated in the flow of the songs.

Entheos – A Thousand Days

And then we get vocals. Chaney Crabb’s delivery is truly unique, and has honestly blown me away. The level of control she has over her vocal texture and pitch in various forms of screaming is uncanny, as well as her ability to switch between sounds. If I didn’t know that she delivers all the vocals, I would honestly assume that with every switch from low, gritty screaming to high pitched shrieking (see title track), there is actually a different vocalist chipping in with the additional sound. On top of this, her clean vocals, though sparse, bring a whole new dimension of torment and anguish to the already dark emotional package. Brief, softly-sung clean moments here and there create a contemplative aesthetic, and the use of gritty but not quite screaming vocals in the chorus of ‘A Thousand Days’ feels truly tormented. Lyrics dealing with unresolved past, existential thoughts on death and the inner struggles in between, are dreadfully relatable in an abstract way, without needing any specific story or concrete imagery attached to them.

Could this be the most emotionally relevant technical death metal release I’ve heard to date? I’m not sure, but it’s certainly close to the top. Entheos is a unique voice in their genre, and they can do something that will never cease to amaze me. They create a fantastic emotional experience out of an extremely technical and clinical performance. You’d think that shouldn’t work, but I feel like the somewhat flat and impersonal sound is actually what connects so well to the emptiness and existentialism in the lyrics, so artistic coherence is achieved. That being said, wait no longer, and give their new EP a try. It’s only 20 minutes after all.

Track List:

1. 1. An End to Everything (03:34)
   2. All For Nothing (03:33)
   3. Life in Slow Motion (03:45)
   4. A Thousand Days (04:07)
   5. Return to Me (04:22)