Review by Steve Sheppard - One World Music Radio

His risk paid off big time!

I remember some years back now when a friend of mine and a fine pianist called Stuart jones contacted me and told me he was going to make a series of trance dance albums, I was stunned to say the least as he was known primarily as a soothing new age artist, but his various works using the trance style seem to appeal to whole new audience, so good on him for that.
Richard Ross seems to have done something similar and surprised us all by revealing to his fans and our global audience an album of electronic dance music, but it’s actually more than that, its actually a very clever pastiche of dance, rhythm and electronica, all cleverly created to give us a very interesting sojourn through music.
The opener is the title track Entropy which contains every little electronic nuance that makes this style so addictive for its fans, there is also a crafted syncopation here that has to be admired, and as always with Ross and his various works, the production quality is simply outstanding.
The interestingly entitled Space Ginger reminded me in parts of some of the more chilled out based music that electronic artist Kevin Kendle did under the pseudonym of Helios. The rhythm and beat is there yes, but also a little global ethic that contains for me a little eastern magic in the mix as well, and the synth work here on this piece is extremely well performed and arranged, to add an extra depth and dimension within the offering that is really attractive.
DBs Cosmic Groove gives us a little personal insight into the artist life as DB is his wife’s initials. This is a high octane offering and one of my preferred pieces and also touching the hem of another UK Electronic legend in Andy Pickford in style. This is a really powerful composition that has such energy about it that simply demands to be listened to.
As we move onwards a really traditional dance track is up next, it’s called Slip Stream, and bears all the hallmarks of tunes we may have heard from the start of this century onwards. I used to use Children by Robert Miles, on one of my sports shows, and this has a similar feel to it, but perhaps lighter in texture and tempo than the aforementioned piece, but never the less rather appealing.
A completely different offering is up next and entitled Potential, the vibe here is somewhat smoother and more chilled, but contains some beautiful performance work by the artist, his technique and timing is sublime and in some way this reminds me a computer game sound track I use to have in the 90’s, but for the life of me I can’t remember which one.
The longest piece off the album at just less than seven minutes is the addictive Pulsar. One cannot help but like this piece, the synths really create a compelling narrative in music that is packed with the energy of movement and purpose, and in some ways takes me back to segments of Beyond the Garden by Geigertek from 2011. Although the constant percussive narrative is deeply rooted in this piece, I believe that the overall arrangement would be one easily accepted by the EM genre as well, in my view Ross with this track has pulled off a masterstroke.
Our last offering is called Comet and the start of this track is beautifully built and layered by Ross. One can really fall head long into this composition, this is one that would fit into the chill out genre with consummate ease, and is indeed one of my favourite pieces off the release.
Ross with Entropy has been bold; he has gone with his gut and created a really chilled album in parts and an addictive one in other aspects. Entropy is one of those albums that will win you over and would be really good to take into the gym or on a long walk with headphones in or on. The performance and production of each and every track on this album is absolute quality, and Richard Ross I think can be proud of his creation.

Rating: Excellent