Denver’s Entropist Redefines Modern Progressive Metal on The Vision
Denver, Colorado’s Entropist has rapidly emerged as one of progressive metal’s most compelling new voices, crafting a sound vocalist Parker Kitching calls “a love letter to metal.” Their music fuses the ambition of progressive metal, the weight of deathcore, the precision of djent, and the emotional depth of post‑hardcore into a sweeping, cinematic style defined by technical mastery and immersive storytelling.
Formed from a decade‑long bond between Solomon Smith (guitar/vocals), Parker Kitching (vocals), Jeremy Smith (bass), and Matt Gleason (drums), Entropist’s origins trace back to 2013 in Greeley, Colorado, where the members first connected as college roommates and neighbors. United by a shared obsession with prog metal and djent, the group spent their early years carpooling to Denver shows, dissecting new releases together, and eventually jamming in their living room with Matt’s drum kit set up beside the couch.
Life pulled the members in different directions after college, but the spark reignited during the COVID era when Solomon began revisiting old material and reconnecting with the band through long Discord calls, shared Guitar Pro files, and late‑night idea exchanges. The lineup solidified with the addition of guitarist Will Vinson, whose creativity and technical approach elevated the band’s sound into its fully realized form.
Their debut album, The Vision, is out now, and marks a bold and ambitious entrance. A dual‑layered concept record, the album intertwines a fantastical narrative of demons, celestial beings, and the void with a grounded exploration of mental struggle, nihilism, and the search for meaning. Written largely from the perspectives of the story’s characters, the album is designed as a front‑to‑back experience filled with recurring motifs, callbacks, and evolving themes.
Musically, Entropist draws from Between the Buried and Me, Meshuggah, Opeth, and The Contortionist, yet their sound remains unmistakably their own. Solomon’s intricate compositions form the backbone of the record, while the rest of the band shaped the material through relentless collaboration and experimentation. The result is a dynamic, through‑composed progressive metal odyssey that spans everything from crushing downtuned heaviness to atmospheric passages, soaring vocal harmonies, and genre‑bending rhythmic exploration.
To bring the album’s massive sound to life, Entropist enlisted renowned producer Jamie King, whose work with BTBAM and The Contortionist helped define modern progressive metal. His mixing and mastering elevated the band’s wide‑ranging ideas into a cohesive, powerful whole. The album’s visual identity comes from a hand‑painted canvas by Solomon’s wife, Shannon Bortfeldt, whose impressionist artwork captures the emotional and narrative weight of the story’s opening moments.
On stage, Entropist has already shared the bill with Nightwraith, So This Is Suffering, Eternal Bloom, The Dawn Chose Orion, WOR, and Fused by Defiance, bringing their intense, immersive sound to audiences across Colorado.
With a debut album that spans genres, tells a sweeping story, and showcases the band’s technical and emotional range, Entropist is poised to become a defining voice in modern progressive metal. Their music is ambitious, meticulously crafted, and driven by a genuine passion for the genre, and The Vision is only the beginning.
First off, care to introduce yourself to our readers?
We’re Entropist, a progressive metal project from Denver, CO! I don’t really do the whole “what genre” thing when writing but I’d call this album progressive melo-deathcore (with a hint of jazz)
Tell us a bit about your recent release.
The Vision is a concept album over a decade in the making, starting with us as a bunch of college kids jamming and trying to make music like our heroes! We got the initial ideas together but between college courses and jobs we didn’t get to finish it at the time needless to say.
But I kept carrying the torch for the next several years, filling out most of the material largely solo until we had the makings of an album. We got the band back together and started writing and jamming again. Believing we had something truly special on our hands, we got Jamie King, the guy who produced some of our favorite albums ever (BTBAM, The Contortionist, and more) to mix and master it, and it sounds massive! I can’t express how proud I am of this album, it’s been a ton of work from every member of the band to make it reality and now we finally get to share it with the world!
Walk us through your creative process when creating music.
This was a pretty unique endeavor for us, our first album being a concept with two stories (one real and one fantastical) that are told simultaneously through the music and lyrics. Writing a concept album really makes you develop a unique relationship with the music. Having a story to tell gives you emotional context of each moment and a sense of cohesion in what is a pretty chaotic and complex album.
The core of the process is creating tons of ideas, which allows you to be really methodical with how you put them together. When I’m writing parts I typically hear the entire composition in my head, so I’ll gather parts and ideas that I like the most and find ways to creatively fill them out and fit them together. Sometimes when the music doesn’t make it obvious where things go next, the concept does, and vice versa. It helps ground the musical storytelling process overall.
Every artist has a ‘lightbulb moment’ where things just clicked. Looking back, what’s the one performance or milestone that made you realize, ‘Okay, this is what I was meant to do’?
A core memory for me was playing a show with an African drum and dance group when I was a kid. I got to play my first ever solo, imagine a little kid waddling to the middle of the dance floor with his tiny djembe slapping away with no clue why people were cheering so hard, but feeling something so powerful within that moment that I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since. There’s a real magic with having the music you create resonate with people, and there have been many moments in my life that I’ll never forget that were formed by that type of organic connection.
We love championing Canadian talent. If you were curating a ‘Must-Listen’ playlist of emerging artists right now, who is the first person you’d add?
When I was in early high school, I was just getting into punk and dabbling in metal, when I had Protest The Hero pop up on a Pandora playlist for the first time and it just blew my mind. I was confused by the chaos and the mathy rhythms, but drawn in by the incredible melodies and undeniable musicianship behind the songs. My girlfriend at the time and I skipped prom to see them play live. It was an eye-opening experience seeing everyone play such crazy, over-the-top, technical music so flawlessly. I can proudly say I’ve brought my now-wife to a show of theirs and she won the costume contest in a huge inflatable Among Us costume. Can call that a core memory for sure!
There’s nothing like the energy of a live room. Where can fans catch you on stage next, and for someone seeing you for the first time, what should they expect from a [Band Name] live experience?”
We absolutely love playing this stuff live. We’ve got really high-energy music, so we’re headbanging, jumping and stomping around, screaming our heads off, and just generally having a fun time! We have some of the chillest people on the planet in the audience (outside the pit of course). We are lining up as many shows as we can around Denver throughout the rest of this year, come check us out if you’re in the area!