Just a few years ago, Entrance was one person: Guy Blakeslee, a Baltimore-born, Chicago-based guitarist. Blakeslee cut his teeth on Fat Possum acoustic blues then graduated into full rock auteurdom with Prayer of Death, a crazy-ass collection of psychedelic guitar scribbling and acid howls. For his follow-up, he has joined forces with drummer Derek W. James and bass player Paz Lenchantin (both of whom played on Prayer) as the Entrance Band, and the rhythm section + lead guitar equation is meant to recall the Jimi Hendrix Experience. This reconfiguration from lone troubadour to bandleader is a bit confounding: Prayer of Death filtered Bay Area psych rock and Chicago-style electric blues into an idiosyncratic and compelling mishmash, and with what seemed at the time like an unwavering devotion to a peculiar vision, he most certainly didn't sound like someone who would play well with others.
And he doesn't. The Entrance Band's self-titled debut dilutes the narcotic otherworldliness of Prayer of Death with jamband wankery that's far too beholden to Jimi in particular and blooze rock in general. Gone are the mind-expanding reverb, devil-may-care indulgences, tweaked nostalgia; in their place are buffed production values, noodly longueurs, "Guitar Hero" theatrics, copycat conceptualism. Blakeslee doesn't clean up so well. In these environs, his caterwaul sounds willfully instead of naturally abrasive, constantly threatening to slide off key but never conveying any wildman bravado. The high notes on "Sing for the One" sound well beyond his reach, and he sounds even further out of his depth on "MLK", a paean to the civil rights leader that has all the gravity of a grade-school book report: "I remember MLK," he sings, "and how I wish he was here today."
This is obviously not the fault of James and Lenchantin, who constitute a perfectly adequate rhythm section. Nor is producer Nadav Eisenman entirely to blame, although his disinfectant sheen saps the dirty rock drama from the instruments. And you can't really chalk it up to the move from Chicago to Los Angeles, even though such westward movement blanches many artists' eccentricities (see: the Band, Rod Stewart). But all of these factors combined have siphoned off the crazy and brought Blakeslee back down to mundane earth, which isn't a good setting for him.
He's only a middling guitar player, but insists on soloing and showboating endlessly, drawing out songs to unnecessary lengths. "You Must Turn" drags on and on through an uninteresting instrumental section, then launches into an ambient outro that goes nowhere slowly. Rising and fading nicely, the slower "Lives" marries some watery Cure guitarwork to a blues framework-- an initially compelling combination that is eventually marred by Blakeslee's mannered howl and the band's aimless playing. Blakeslee does himself and his band a severe disservice by resurrecting one of the best Prayer of Death tracks, "Grim Reaper Blues", as a sallow retread, with his vocals garishly out front and with no trace of the mortal conflict that shot through the previous album. It's an unfortunate point of comparison that just shows how harshed Blakeslee's buzz has become.
