New album from CHAOS FRAME, the US progressive metal from Minnesota that deputed in 2011 with the “Another Life” LP and returned in 2015 with the second album called “Paths to Exile”. The new album, the third one, is called “Entropy” and finds the band improved and very energetic.
For those who are not familiar with the band, the album sounds like a beautiful and successful mixture of DREAM THEATER (in a simplified and less technical form) and ARTENSION with many heavy/power speedy outbursts that resemble perhaps those of NOBLE BEAST. The album is in general richer and more diverse than the previous two, and it manages to keep the listener quite active while listening to it.
The album’s opening track, “The Timepiece Shatters (Entropy Pt I)” is a nice CHAOS FRAME song, but perhaps is a bit typical. The level increases significantly in the rest of the album and the band presents some of the best songs of its career. Great progressive/neo-classical melodies and amazing choruses where the vocals of Dave Brown can only be described as magnificent – one the best voices of this neo-classical style.
“To Reap and Never Sow”, “Skyscraper” (amazing track), the dark and atmospheric “Always Looking Down”, are very adventurous songs where the clever changes travel you all along this prog/neo-classical/speed metal combination that the band proposes. “The Late Goodbye” is a nice ballad to help us chill-out from the previous heavy/prog outburst, or if you like, to prepare the listener for “Forever is Nothing”, one of the band’s anthems that the power/progressive/ neo-classical metal fans will love.
CHAOS FRAME present in its new work “Entropy” a very good album that combines the progressive metal feeling of the 90s with speed power metal and a contemporary heavy metal production. Some of the tracks are excellent, and promise great musical satisfaction to those who are always thirsty for traditional progressive metal.
