Entombed are without a doubt one of the most influencial and most productive acts ever to emerge from the country that to some only consists of meatballs and blonde girls (yes it's Sweden). 2/4ths of the now legendary cult band Morbid, which consisted of Dead (R.I.P.) (MayheM), Drutten, Napoleon Pukes and Ronny Eide, formed in 1987 Nihilist, (a name they changed to Entombed when releasing their only demo But Life Goes On). The 2 guys forming Nihilist were Drutten, now refered to by his real name Lars Göran Petrov, and is the singer in Entombed, and Napoleon Pukes, who is Uffe Cederlund, one of the two guitarists in Entombed. Alex Hellid is the other guitarist in Entombed and Nicke Anderson were the drummer. Only Nicke is no longer in Entombed, as he has been replaced by drummer Peter Stjärnvind (Unanimated, Merciless, Murder Squad). Uffe and Nicke used to take turns in handling the bass, but nowadays the bass is handed over to Jörgen Sandström (Grave, The Project Hate). Before him for a while the bass was played by Lars Rosenberg. Entombed quickly caught the attention of the english label Earache under whose protective wings they released three successful lp's and four singles/EP's before they split with the english label, to sign a near fatal contract with Colombia, who at the time had a habit of signing Earache's most hopefull acts, among them were Carcass (R.I.P.) and we all know how that went! Fucking bastards! After a long period of silence from Entombed, they released To Ride, Shoot Straight And Speak The Truth from their own label called Threeman Recordings under license to Music For Nations. Since then they have kept on feeding their fans with great releases. It's not only the studio that Entombed rules. The live-situation is something you, the reader, really should experience, because these swedes are one of the most energetic live acts around! Period. Left Hand Path,  Earache 1990.  Rating: 78 This is their debut, that came out on Earache Records. It's early Swedish Death Metal, which later became a trademark. Entombed were a part of the first wave of swedish death metal together with bands like Dismember, Unleashed, Cemetary, Edge Of Sanity, Desultory and Grave. Many of these bands used Tomas Skogsberg's studio Sunlight in Stockholm, which might explain the similarities inbetween the bands. This was a glorious period in metal history and put Sweden in league with other great metalnations as U.S.A., U.K. and Germany. The second or new wave, which is more fast and with screamier not growling vocals, came some years later when bands like At The Gates, Dark Tranquillity, Crown Of Thorns (Now The Crown) and In Flames became known to the world. The vocals on Left Hand Path are very angry and brutally spewed by L.G. Petrov. The cover is by Dan Seagrave and as always is a masterpiece. Something funny is that the left hand path on the cover crosses a bridge and becomes a right hand path. It doesn't have a deeper meaning though, as the LP is just about taking the left hand path. It means something, Lars Göran mentioned it in an interview once, but we can't remember, sorry, but feel free to broaden our horizons if you know what it means. Their fascination with horrormovies becomes obvious after listening to the openingtrack Left Hand Path, which has a keyboardbreak, that sound spooky and primitive like an old horromovie. Classic Entombed track. Entombed became better songwriters for their next release. What Man Has Created Man Can Destroy Bring To Light That Day Of Joy Clandestine,  Earache 1992.  Rating: 88 Another classic from this Swedish bunch. Clandestine kicks off where Left Hand Path stopped, which means full ahead death metal! No holds barred! A small line-up change had occurred as drummer Nicke Andersson couldn't get along with L.G. Petrov, the band enlisted Johnny Dordevic (ex. Carnage bassist) on vocals and Lars Rosenberg on bass. Not many people know this, but J. Dordevic doesn't actually sing on Clandestine, in fact it's Nicke Andersson. The only thing Dordevic appeared in/on was the "Stranger Aeons" video and a small part of the "Gods Of Grind" tour, it was during that tour, he was kicked out of Entombed and L.G. Petrow joined again. Well, back to the music. Clandestine contains quite a few classic Entombed tracks, some of them being Living Dead, Sinners Bleed, Stranger Aeons and Crawl. Many people think of this cd/lp as the best Swedish death metal piece ever and it's easy to agree with them, no doubt about it! Hollowman,  Earache 1993.  Rating: 80 This EP was meant as an appetizer before the upcoming Wolverine Blues was released. It features 6 tracks in all, 5 tracks that werenąt featured on Wolverine Blues along with the title track, Hollowman. Some of the fans were quite shocked when this first came out, mainly because it showed Entombed moving away from their earlier pioneering death metal and incorporating a more rock edge to their music. They probably lost a couple of the hard core death metal fans with this release, but they later gained quite a few as well. The tracks on this EP are as mentioned, more rock influenced than earlier and that gives Entombed's music a lot more boost, especially when talking about tracks like Serpent Speech and Bonehouse. One of the best tracks, Hellraiser, is Entombed's tribute to, yes you guessed it: The Hellraiser movies. They thought that Motörhead had done a lousy job when they recorded their track for the Hellraiser III ­ Hell On Earth soundtrack. And being very big fans of the movies, they did their own tribute, it's an instrumental piece though, with a lot of samples from these great movies. (Allthough Gryn doesn't agree, Agantyr thinks that Hellraiser II is one of the greatest horror movies ever made!) (Skrik 3 rules HAhaha!!!!). This release also features a slightly different version of the track Wolverine Blues where L.G. Petrov speaks about the animal called Wolverine, unlike the one featured on the full length, which features actual lyrics. Wolverine Blues,  Earache 1993.  Rating: 85 This release is what you could call Entombed's breakthrough album. They gained a lot of international attention with this one, and they founded a new genre within death metal, which many referred to as death 'n roll. The first version of Wolverine Blues comes with some movie samples (from: Hellraiser, Flatliners and a couple of others which we have yet to identify), but due to the fact that they had to pay royalties for using some of these samples, they were later removed from the album. The lyrics on the album are very cryptic with a hint of misanthropy, like this line from the song Contempt: "Humanity Is The Biggest Cancer Ever To Be Seen! ". Classic stuff! Out Of Hand,  Earache 1993.  Rating: 75 This single was released a while after Wolverine Blues, while the band was touring America. The single features Out Of Hand and two covers, God Of Thunder (Kiss) and Black Breath (Repulsion). Since we don't think Out Of Hand is that great a track, the two covers steal all of the attention. God Of Thunder is a great cover with lots of tension and aggression in the production (the main riff simply kills with this production. It's fucking HEAVY!), which fits this rather slow song perfectly. Black Breath is also a great cover. It's a lot faster than the Kiss cover and helps this single by not becoming too slow or boring. Night Of The Vampire,  Earache 1995.  Rating: 85 This is a split 7" with the band New Bomb Turks. Originally done by this looney called Roky Erikcson, the song is one of the greatest covers ever done by Entombed! With it's gloomy tendencies, it scrapes along at a medium pace (without getting boring at any time!). Neatly packaged with the Entombed trademark production, this song is historical. Also worth mentioning is that the swedes shot a promo video for this song for a budget of around 5000$!! Yet it turned out to be one of their best videos! We don't see any point in reviewing the New Bomb Turks song though, since it has nothing what so ever to do with metal. Monkey Puss (Live In London),  Earache 1998.  Rating: 63 Astoria, London, UK; March 18th 1992 This is an attempt by Earache to squeeze the last bit of money out of Entombed; what a bunch of assholes, to put it nicely. The concert is from 1992! What a laugh, but hey it's Entombed, so we've got to buy it. The tracks, as this an old recording consists of classics from the album Clandestine and downwards. It's a pretty boring cd and the crowd sounds unenthusiastic. The track listing goes as follows: Living Dead, Revel In Flesh, Stranger Aeons, Crawl, But Life Goes On, Sinners Bleed, Evilyn, The Truth Beyond, Drowned and Left Hand Path. A shame they can't get that same enchanting atmosphere down on cd as they produce at liveshows, 'cause it is really an extraordinary experience to attend an Entombed concert. You are consumed by the music. Anyone who hasn't been to an Entombed gig sure missed something vital in their metal upbringing.

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