Purple People

Entropy’s second album has some great moments, but also some shortcomings. Regular readers will know that one of psyreviews’ pet hates at the moment is the way that some dark, nighttime music is just a boring retread of the last lot of dark, nighttime music. The innovation we loved it for last year has given way to generic repetition, cliché, and boredom; just like the fullon beast before it.

Entropy are a good act, let’s be honest. Yet quite whether Purple People has enough ideas to warrant a whole album is another matter. Middle End has some good progression through it, with new sounds coming in all the time, little tricks, and some pretty funny moments – without betraying their solid, cold soul that rips through the music like a juggernaut. Super Duper is a cerebral nightmare – tight, evolving stuff that with heaps of changes (most of which conspire to scare the living shinola out of you.) Sample This has a funkier, funnier feel. It drones and builds nicely, and once again there are enough changes to keep you focussed on the music.

Greenwood samples Leary and as such keeps the trippers happy; musically it’s more of the same, but with the amps turned up to eleven. Who Wants Cracker has a cheeky Nirvana sample, used in the break and then again towards the end in a beautifully discordant spell: this is Entropy on fire. The music warps around and around like a 2CB trip, there are escalations everywhere, and stripped right down beneath all this is some fucking good FUN. Trick Or Trip is great: the vibe is a little more relaxed, and the music has more room to manoeuver. The breakdown is sparse, the drop back in is relaxed, and then all hell breaks loose. Cats Fight is large, but also mostly over-familiar; likewise Tranceformer. With the closing track Grab, I wanted them to do something different, something brave, but unfortunately that’s no go. It’s another retread – albeit a quality retreading – of their sound, of the Doof records sound, and of the whole dark psy sound as a whole.

At the end of the day, while the music is generally tight and good quality, it seems as though it’s a bit of a stretch to have a whole album’s worth. Much as I hate to end a review like this, if you like dark psy then you’ll love this; if you don’t then it’s by no means an essential pitstop on your psytrance journey.