In a single glance, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell that The Veldt is a rock outfit working out of the underground rather than the mainstream – their music has all the trappings of something elite and polished to the finest of details, right down to the contemporary indie influences that so many legendary artists in the genre have been embracing in a bid to keep up with the rising interest in post-punk acts. In the bones of their composing, we can find traces of everything from the shoegaze of old to first-gen noise music, and although this can be said of a lot of players in the domestic underground, The Veldt’s album Entropy is the Mainline to God might be one of the first instances of a modern alternative release garnering the level of attention it has in this era of new waves within a once insular scene.

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“Check Out Your Mind,” “New Blood,” “Slave Ship Serenade,” and “Red Flagz” are more harmony-focused than some of the other material on the album, but there isn’t a single track included in Entropy is the Mainline to God that doesn’t feature a mood as the centerpiece of the song. Whether they’re putting everything on the line in metaphorical carnage ala “Requiem for Emmett Till” or getting a little more multi-interpretive and specifically enigmatic with “Sweeter” and “Electric Revolution,” you don’t have to be a professional critic to recognize just how much of a personal investment The Veldt so clearly has in everything they’re singing about in this full-length release; perhaps even more so than we’ve seen in the past thirty years of their output.

I like the instrumental play in “Walk With the Spirits,” “Get Away (Interpolation),” and “New Blood,” and while it’s more of an understated component of the catharsis in “Soul Power,” it’s always a very provocative point of allure in Entropy is the Mainline to God. I get the impression from The Veldt that they don’t want to be regarded in the same light so many of their one-dimensional rivals in the underground have been in the indie press; had this not been the case, I don’t think they would have taken as intellectual a route when structuring the best moments in their new album. There’s an appreciation for intricacy here that is anything but commonplace, anywhere in the industry, and it could play a big part in bringing this act the kind of spotlight they’ve spent so many years earning.

The Veldt drops a fine new LP in Entropy is the Mainline to God that lives up to every bit of the hype it’s attracted on both sides of the pond this year, and while I wouldn’t say it’s the only rock record you should listen to before 2023 is over, there aren’t many that have the sort of compositional versatility its tracklist boasts in spades. Entropy is the Mainline to God has the framework of an alternative rock record but the cosmetic polish of an indie pop affair, and when married together, these two factors produce something that is uniquely The Veldt.

Sebastian Cole