Whether grinding out a cerebral jam in “New Blood,” laying down something a bit more calculated in “Soul Power,” hammering away at texture-based ridges and grooves in “Electric Revolution” or disassembling what feels like a familiar arrangement in “Cold Outside,” there’s something very experimental about what The Veldt is playing in their new album Entropy is the Mainline to God.
Still keeping a flame lit in the American underground and sporting the title of legends among any genuine critics’ circles, The Veldt does not hold back from giving us some powerful tonalities in songs like “Sweeter,” the evocative “Requiem for Emmett Till,” “Red Flagz,” and dagger-like “Slave Ship Serenade.” Although theirs isn’t a sound entirely dependent on their eclectic influences to hold the material together, it certainly adds to the overall persona they establish once more in this LP. Entropy is the Mainline to God might not be what many contemporary alternative rock fans would be expecting to hear this season, but if you ask me, it’s exactly what the genre needed to stay vital in this particularly strange age for music. In this tracklist, there’s simply nothing more important to the players than embracing the left field of melodicism, where their talents often get the most use.
There are some pretty strong punk influences in this record, and they’re not limited to the sonic stomp of “Walk With the Spirits,” and the grungy “Get Away (Interpolation)” in the least. There’s a stylishness to the lyrical approach in “Check Out Your Mind” and even the aforementioned “New Blood” that sounds straightforward and even a bit introspective through and through, and the same can be said with regards to the compositional structuring of “Electric Revolution” and “Requiem for Emmett Till.” I’d love to hear all of this material live sometime if for no other reason than to experience the kind of energy The Veldt can put into it on stage; in the case of songs like “Electric Revolution,” there’s already so much gusto in their presence that one can only imagine that a live jam would be even more crushing than what they and the band put out for these sessions.
A studded addition to a discography that is both intriguing and highly misunderstood by even some of the more erudite listeners among us, Entropy is the Mainline to God will not serve as the last time The Veldt’s music makes headlines in the international underground. Stateside the rock mainstream has largely been struggling to keep up with an indie movement that some have said contains much of the spirit of alternative rock abandoned in the name of commercial indulgence in the past thirty years or so, and I think there’s a taste of that rebellious, nonconforming element in The Veldt’s latest work. They’re not trying to go progressive, but in Entropy is the Mainline to God, they revive a more indulgent strain of alternative rock that stands to change some perspectives on what this genre can offer both on a lyrical and sonic front. Good music, after all, is hardly dead in 2023, and this is a record that emphatically reminds us of this.
Kim Muncie