Ashen Existence

The word entropy, as any self-respecting metalhead should know, refers to a gradual decline into decay. And the 1990's had the market cornered on that. Thrash's gonads took a particularly entropic pummeling that's had me crossing my legs with pain empathy ever since. Traditional thrash had no choice but to cocoon for much of the decade, unintentionally allowing progressive thrash to metamorphose and flourish. Entropy was among the many bands to roll up their sleeves, dog-ear The Dragons of Eden, and get to work writing their highbrow debut Ashen Existence.

A Canuck thrash band with a propensity for thesaurus-reliant track titles may bridge you to fellow thrash eggheads Obliveon, and you wouldn't be that far off. Ashen Existence features a vehement trapeze act between thrash and death metal, with vocalist Gerry Shreinert doing much of the swinging. Delivering hoarse lows, gnarled barks, and even piercing operatics, Shreinert's delivery is dramatic, if perhaps too uncurbed for some. I've heard a handful of comparisons to Dark Angel's Ron Rinehart, for reasons I hope extend past rhyming surnames. Throw Artillery's maniacal Flemming Rönsdorf in the mix and you're all set.

It's hard to believe the outrageous vocal prosody can get overshadowed by song structure, but then again, this is progressive thrash: the average track is as long as an entire speed metal album. But at least Ashen Existence's titanic canvas is painted with a vivid palette. The lofty 9-minute 'Exalted Sith' dabbles in everything from Paradox's classical tinged power thrash, to ominous lumbermill death riffs, and apparently some more typical thrash riffs left straggling from the late 80's just for the hell of it.

But as Entropy was furiously scrawling page after page of music, they failed to realize how long these songs were getting, and how their pen was intermittently running out of ink. Elements of death, thrash, and black metal all work well individually, but their combination is as graceful as a human centipede. The shifting of time signatures, tempos, and keys feels clunky and contrived, making me think certain tracks should've been (or originally were) divided between two or three separate songs. This is particularly true of the artificially elongated 'Traces of Time', a meandering, insipid toiling that brought back some memories of Syzygial Miscreancy that I thought I killed with alcohol a long time ago.

But I can't let that upset me too much. Nor can I be upset about the gristly, bass-less mix, as it was an independently released thrash album in 1992: conclusions don't get much more foregone than that. Ashen Existence is, for the most part, a wise voyage through technical thrash with quirky, progressive flavors and some of the finest death/thrash drumming this side of Protector's late, great Michael Hasse. But sadly, Entropy would eventually fall victim to entropy, releasing the minimalistic, groove-infected Transcendence three years later. How disappointing.