Band:	Entheos
Album:	Time Will Take Us All
Style:	Technical death metal, Progressive metal
Release date:	March 03, 2023
A review by:	RaduP

01. Absolute Zero
02. In Purgatory
03. The Interior Wilderness
04. Oblivion
05. I Am The Void
06. Darkest Day
07. Clarity In Waves
08. The Sinking Sun
09. Time Will Take Us All

Polished new school tech death, even with more of a core leaning, might be a sound that's already quite saturated, but there's still enough that's unique about Entheos sound for them to leave a mark.

For one, the band is quite a bit older than meets the eye, since the core of the band actually goes back to another band, a more deathcore-ish act in the form of Animosity, one that was contemporary with the deathcore sound as it was first emerging, and managing to sound unique within that emerging sound too. Navene Koperweis and Evan Brewer would go on to also do work with other acts like Animals As Leaders, Job For A Cowboy, Fallujah, and The Faceless, some of them quite recently, but the pair also joined forces again around 2014/2015 for Entheos. Though some lineup changes have happened, and Evan Brewer's involvement with the band is not something I'm very sure of, as he seems to be a session musician here, the band has now cemented around multi-instrumentalist Navene Koperweis and vocalist Chaney Crabb, the latter of which has also been with the band since the beginning.

Considering how much time has passed since the band's previous releases and the lineup consolidation, it's no surprise that Entheos' sound has also consolidated. The band still manages to pull from various related sounds, from noodly tech death, deathcore that is similarly technical, Meshuggah-ish djent, progressive death metal, and even moments like the groove/alt metal in "I Am The Void", and some of the noodles in the tech death moments, particularly some of the bass, pointing to the jazz fusion that influenced early prog/tech death. A lot of it is just slight nuance that's hard to pick up for the uninitiated, and a lot of it can sound like just growls over overly technical riffing change, but Entheos manage to not only blend all those sounds into a cohesive sound, while also fully embracing the nuances of these sound to create some dynamic diversity in the sound. And there's quite a few ways in which this works.

Chaney Crabb is a monster of a vocalist. We all kinda knew that already. But Time Will Take Us All is the kind of album that makes you check for guest spots simply because of the range exhibited by the vocalist. And it's not like the range is that wide, but it is very versatile within that limited tech deathcore sphere. And with the clean vocals in the aforementioned "I Am The Void" track and even more ethereally in the closer, a move that would generally be a bit tacky, does actually work to expand the vocal and instrumental palette pretty tactfully. And outside of the vocals, what works in Entheos' favor is that the technical side of their music isn't overtly chaotic, creating intricate riffing but not shying away from really working a really good riff to its full potential rather than frantically changing them, while the solos also feel pretty well integrated within the overall sound. What is a bit of a drawback to Time Will Take Us All is that the mixing lets the guitars and vocals shine, but the drums and bass feel a bit punchless in comparison. It's not very distracting unless you notice it, but I did notice eventually.

Still, songwriting-wise, Time Will Take Us All feels like Entheos' best album, playing to some of the band's strengths in keeping them apart within the scene. Drawbacks exist, but they don't hold the album back much when compared to just how strong its strengths are.