Mind Noise Network
Entwine - Chaotic Nation
by Dan King - 2 November 2015
If you've followed Finnish metal for the past 20 years there's a good chance you'd have picked up on the ever evolving Entwine. Forming in 1995 as a death metal band, several member changes have bred a couple of changes in musical direction on their travels. Their early music was death metal through and through, but since 1997 the changes of personnel have seen their style take on gothic influences and move towards a more melodic 'rock' style. This is how we get to 2015 and their 7th full length studio album, Chaotic Nation.
What is most impressive is that a band that has gone through so much change can still work together so cohesively. The album has some of the standard Scandinavian symphonic elements that it seems bands from that area can't live without these days, but for the most part they are kept in the background with the riffs taking the spotlight along with the Dave McPherson-esque vocals.
Opening track End Of Silence provides you with everything you need to decide whether you're gonna like Entwine. The gritty vocals, the chunky riff and the big chorus give the listener a lot of incentive to do so. Saint Of Sorrow feels even bigger with the backing vocals giving the song a bit more oomph to it. These two tracks are really quite good and for someone that read the labelling of 'goth-rock' and just thought "oh god, this is gonna be crap", I am pleasantly surprised and feel even more strongly that we should stop inventing stupid sub-genres. This is rock through and through.
Fortune Falls follows and sounds like an 80s synth-rock band have taken control of the album. As good as the opening tracks were, this one feels bigger and better. For me it is one of the strongest tracks on the album and is followed up nicely by Plastic World. The vocals are most prominent on this one and combined with As We Arise it is a nice break from the riffs and synths. Lost But Not Alive has a similar feel to the tracks preceding it, but has a bit more of a riffy ballad atmosphere to it.
Adrenalize has the feel of a rockier Radiohead with the vocals having a very Thom Yorke style, it's not all doom and gloom though, so that's a bonus. This, plus the final few tracks on the album certainly feel like the end of the album is coming. They aren't bad tracks and really I would find it hard to call any of the tracks on the album anything worse than good. Saying that though, Scream does have a bit of a Foo Fighters feel to it, with some nice additional orchestral tones.
So, what have we learnt from this album? Finnish goth-rock is actually pretty good and Entwine have put out a great example of it. We've also learnt that really this is just a good rock album, let's forget about the rest of it and just enjoy a top quality album.
Dan's recommended tracks: Fortune Falls, Plastic World
For fans of: InMe, Silverchair, Sevendust
Can you see these guys in the UK?: There doesn't look like there any dates ATM.
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1/20
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