So here is the post covid album, album number 7, and a label change. It’s the second album for Penki Samuelsson’s switch to vocals and Markus Svenson on guitars, though there is yet another new drummer , Arvid Borg. But of course, this is still Jimmy Lundqvist’s show, and while everything is still in place including his stupidly heavy  mix which takes the HM2/Sunlight sound to teeth-rattling new levels, the result is largely the same as the last few albums- solid Swedish death metal.

The title track opens things up with a brief instrumental, (still one of my pet peeves), before “Die to Death” (really?) starts things for real with a pretty energetic if otherwise unspectacular track, but one that has a really nice mid-song groove that highlights the massive guitar tone. And it’s these moments where the guitars are allowed to breathe and shake your windows where the album stands out a little more.

All the tracks mix things up a bit with slower and faster moments, but it’s tracks like “Slayed to a Pile of Flesh”, “Dead By Evil”, “Inverted Graveyard” (two of the album’s better cuts), “Autopsy” and stout closer “Possessed”, where there is a little more focus  on heftier grooves and chugs are by far the albums highlights as the guitar tone is allowed to simply destroy everything in its path. Still, nothing ever comes close to the likes of “Voices”, “Euthanasia” or “End of All Existence”  from the bands early efforts.

Then, the likes of “The Dead”, “Fear the End” , “Open Casket Feast” and “Reborn in Worms’ all have more up tempo galloping harder charging riffs that deliver plenty of blast beats or d -beat, classic Swedish canters that are still satisfying if familiar.

While Entrails were once the undisputed kings of the genre, the fact is some other bands like Necrom (whose All Paths Are Left Here is the best album of the year in the genre) , Abscession,  Katakomba, Sentient Horror, Gods Forsaken, Disfuneral, Organic, Iron Flesh are nipping at their heels , and while they answered the bell with An Eternal Time of Decay, I’m not sure how many more times they can respond.

Not that Samuelsson isn’t a good vocalist, but for his other project Gravestone (who released a killer album last year) he has a more punky throaty, sneering approach that’s not as imposing as the prior rotation of vocalists (Birdflesh’s Jocke Svensson, Istapp’s Tommy Carlsson), and the two bands would be indistinguishable.

Well, that fear was pretty well cemented, as indeed, Samuelsson’s  vocals are more raspy and punky, and indeed the 2 bands are way too similar now, but that’s a small blemish on yet another other wise solid Entrails effort that delivers everything they have excelled at for 6 albums now.

The production and Dan Swano mix is still one of the best and most devastating HM-2, mid range tones around, with a teeth rattling bottom end and the songs are still a perfect balance of hefty grooves and blasts, even if some of the songs veer into more d-beat/punky Gravestone-ish territory (i.e “Gravekeeper”,  “Crawling In your Guts”, “For Whom the Head Rolls”).

Amid the 11 actual tracks, standouts include “For Hell” with its  catchy Dismember-ish, melodic gallop, “The Pyre” with a nice opening grove and atmospheric mid song break, musty “Gravekeeper”,  massive mid song groove of “Destruction”, sickly crawls of “Evils of the Night” (where that guitar tone just destroys…) , huge sauntering lumber of “In The Shape of Dead” and late album slow burner “Cathedral of Pain”, as its clear Entrails are at their best when rendering thick, meaty grooves and imposing lopes.

The rest of the album is faster, shorter stabs of straight up death metal such as “Miscreation”, “Destination Death”,  and the aforementioned tracks that could be from a Gravestone album. That’s not to say they are chopped liver, but they are certainly interchangeable. And as a result Rise of the Reaper, while another solid Entrails album, it feels more in line with Obliteration, being just an OK effort as opposed to a truly killer album like the bands first 3 or the last effort, World Inferno. And Jeffrey Epstein didn’t kill himself.

Well, World Inferno sees yet more line up shuffling around stalwart founder Jimmy Lundqvist, but this time for the better as  bassist/vocalist Tommy Carlson (ex Visceral Bleeding ex Istapp) and drummer Martin “Fjalar” Mikaelsson (Istapp, ex Unchained) have appeared to re energized Lundqvist  and it has resulted in the bands best album since the Dark Descent releases.

As you’d expect, the Dan Swano mix/master is absolutely huge and ridiculously heavy and even in today’s HM boss pedal explosion, it stands out. But unlike Obliteration which fell short on the actual songs, World Inferno is chock full of damn killer tunes that are far more than just a killer production. Right from the fucking chorus /riff of the opening title track, it’s clear Lundqvist is back in top form and tracks like “The Soul Collector”, “Dead and Buried”, “Insane Slaughter” and “The Hour of the Casket” are fucking thunderous as all get out and catchy as heck with the classic Swedish gallop and trots in spades.

A couple of numbers, “Into Eternal Fire”,  start of “Hour of the Casket” and varied/atmospheric  closer “The Blood Breed”  slow things down to more of a hefty trundle but boy does that guitar tone make them everso fucking heavy. Seriously is there  better moment in death metal than when a single guitar cranks out a riff with that mid range buzz and is joined later to rattle your teeth? The 41 second mark of ‘Into Eternal Fire” says FUCK NO!.

Admittedly, the likes of Sentient Horror, Fatalist, Skelethal, Interment, Abscession, Brutally Deceased and others have kept the throne warm for the last couple of years, But Entrails are here to claim it back and remind everyone that they are arguably the reason the genre exploded again back in 2010 and still the top dog on the block when it comes to this style.

But Obliteration sees the departure of long time guitarist Mathias Nilsson, replaced with youngster Penki Samuelsson, and while Entrails is certainly Jimmy Lundquist’s show, there’s is certainly a noticeable void. Not that Obliteration is not worthy of Entrails esteemed back catalog, but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t something missing.

The guitar tone is there, and as thick, mid range and buzzsaw-y as ever, maybe even more than ever. The nods to the classic releases from Entombed, Grave and Dismember are there and the songs deliver huge grooves and thunderous gallops in spades. But after multiple listens, the fact remains that I keep coming back to other releases in style before Obliteration. Feral’s Where Dead Dream Dwell, Morbid Vomit‘s Return to the Crypts, and Cult of Endtime‘s In Charnel Lights. And I don’t think that is a knock on Lundquist and co, but more speaks to the fact other bands are catching up to Entrails‘ previously untouchable delivery of the style.

Where debut Tales from the Morgue had the likes of “Voices” and “Euthanasia”, and follow up The Tomb Awaits had “Eaten by the Dead” or “Collection of Cracked heads” and Raging Death had “Headless Dawn” and “Carved to the Bone”, Obliteration lacks those signature, “FUCK YES!” songs that just throttle your neck and smash your skull in. There just seems to be that lack of utterly killer, blood pumping groove or canter that sticks with you long after the record is over.

Now don’t get me wrong Obliteration is a fine, solid album there are some good, maybe great songs here like standout “Epitome of Death”, “The Grotesque” and “Midnight Coffin”, which all come close, but when the teeth rattling production (and that stellar artwork) is more memorable that most of the songs, there’s a problem. I know it’s been two years since the last album, but the words rushed  and safe kept coming to mind….. I mean just listen to the lead off single “Beyond the Flesh” above, the sort of the  title track “Obliterate” or “Abyss of Corpses” and tell me that you want to punch your granny in the face? Nope? I thought so. And that’s whats missing on a majority of Obliteration.

Now, did I enjoy Obliteration? Of course I did, I live for this style and sound and Entrails is one of the very best at it. But is Obliteration  going to be my go to Entrails album? I’m afraid not as the three previous album were all better, with killer, arguably classic genre defining songs scattered among them while Obliteration is merely solid.

– March 24th, 2015 –

Preorders + Teaser Track Unveiled

Swedish death metal overlords, ENTRAILS, will unleash the putrid fruits of their newest studio offering this May via Metal Blade Records. Fittingly dubbed, Obliteration, the follow-up to 2013′s Raging Deathfull-length was tracked by guitarist Jimmy Lundqvist at his own “Bloodshed Studios” and mixed and mastered by legendary musician/soundsmith Dan Swanö (Edge Of Sanity, Bloodbath, Aeon, Hail Of Bullets etc.) at Unisound. Featuring ten mangled tracks of sonic malevolence, Obliteration carries on the torch of true, old school Swedish brutality.

Comments Lundqvist: “Finally, we can unleash this beast named Obliteration to the fans out there, this time with a more driven and raw style that shall taste good to everyone’s ears if you’re into the older simplified death metal that we prefer to play. Recorded in our own Bloodshed Studios and mixed by the mighty Dan Swanö nothing else but slabby Swedeath can be served.“

Sample the sonic severity of the third cut, “Beyond The Flesh,” at metalblade.com/entrails.

Obliteration Track Listing:
1. No Cross Left Unturned
2. Epitome of Death
3. Beyond the Flesh
4. The Grotesque
5. Obliterate
6. Skulls
7. Midnight Coffin
8. Bonestorm
9. Abyss of Corpses
10. Re-Animation of the Dead

Boasting members of Birdflesh and General Surgery, ENTRAILS celebrate the teachings of Dismember, Grave, Entombed and Tomas Skogsberg’s Sunlight Studio alumni with a mutinous air raid of buzzsaw riffs, bestial vocal tirades, earth-rumbling rhythms and repugnant tales of suffering, doom and the undead with the expert brutality of their forefathers. The band was initially forged in 1990 by Lundqvist but disbanded prematurely due to his dissatisfaction with their initial demo recordings. Half the lineup went their separate ways while Lundqvist continued to write music until 1998, when ENTRAILSofficially went dormant. It would be a full decade before the band would ascend from the grave when Lundqvist found the band’s early recordings in an old tape collection and decided they deserved to be released as they should have been originally. With modern recording technology, the first twoENTRAILS demos — Reborn and Human Decay — finally took shape.

The band unleashed their menacing Tales From The Morgue debut in June of 2010. The album featured songs from both newly recorded demos and was mixed and mastered by Dan Swanö. 2011′s delightfully repugnant The Tomb Awaits full-length would follow. The record reaped critical adoration from metallers and media outlets both stateside and abroad with No Clean Singing noting, “although massive distortion is (of corpse) the name of this game, Lundqvist enhances the morbid fascination of the music with near-clean, Dismember-ish, reverberating guitar solos that alternately slither, writhe, and moan seductively. Indeed, all of the multi-faceted guitar tones and riffing techniques on this album, and the way in which they’re balanced in the mix with the gut-punching bass and the drum-kit attack, are near-textbook representations of how this genre of music should sound.“

ENTRAILS joined the Metal Blade Records roster in March of 2012, leveling the stages of numerous festivals throughout Europe (Party.San, Summer Breeze etc.) that Summer before composing 2013′s ravenous Raging Death full-length. It was then that Lundqvist moved his studio into the woodshed where it all began in the ’90s. The new/old surrounding inspired Lundqvist to write material like never before. Released later that year, The New Noise crowned the record, “an absolutely perfect slab of catchy, violent Swedish death metal,” while Stereogum commended it for being, “perfect for blasting, banging, and bashing.” Added All Music, “What comes through right away is the guitar tone, with its perfect blend of thickness and crunch feeling like a portal to the days when the fat distortion that was the backbone of Swedish death metal was (and perhaps still is) the heaviest thing to come out of an amp. Immediately afterwards you’re hit by just how punishing the album is. These songs aren’t here to dazzle you with their speed or virtuosity. Instead, they offer up the fat slabs of classic riffage that seek only to crush the listener under their immense weight, bringing a muscularity to the table that’s hard to fake.”

Dubbed “one of the more vital and warranted demo collections to be made available” by Metal Injection in an 8/10 review, ENTRAILS dropped Resurrected From The Grave – Demo Collection last summer. The eighteen-track collection delivers the band’s Reborn and Human Decay recordings – the now infamous demos that started it all in one venomous helping. And now comes the time for a new chapter in extremity with the audio disease of Obliteration.

Obliteration will see release via Metal Blade Record on May 15, 2015. For preorder bundles, visitmetalblade.com/entrails.

ENTRAILS:
Jimmy Lundqvist – guitars
Joakim Svensson – vocals/bass
Pontus Samuelsson – guitars
Adde Mitroulis – drums

http://www.facebook.com/Entrails666
http://www.metalblade.com/entrails

First off, the sound, notably the guitar tone on Raging Death is just fucking sublime. It mixes Clandestine‘s thunderous bottom end and drums with You’ll Never See and Soulless’s buzz. Throw in more of an emphasis on groove and catchy-ness and you get a cross section of those albums’ songs, with just a dash of the under rated Massive Killing Capacity. Still using riffs he penned over twenty years ago (i.e “Bloodhammer”), Lundqvist has brought back actual riffs with a vengeance. And while many of his peers also have captured the sound well, the fact these guys were formed in 1990 and only recently unleashed some dusted off riffs, this sounds more authentic than many bands that simply formed a couple of years ago with an HM2 pedal and a copy of Left Hand Path.

Raging Death is perfect in every sense and while bolstered by the killer production, the songs are just expertly rendered from a bygone era without simply being nostalgic for nostalgia sake. As with the first two efforts  (i.e “Voices”, “Euthanasia”, “End of All Existence”), there’s some legitimately classic riffs on here that simply invoke the classics, sometimes too closely (for example, the Phantasm-y synths from closer “The Cemetery Horrors” are more than a nod to “Left Hand Path’s” classic mid section). But with such a dearth of simply brilliant, thick grooves, you can’t help enjoy Raging Death on it’s own merits too.

From the spooky classic opening of “In Pieces” through the aforementioned “The Cemetery Horrors”, the whole album, every single note and track is pure Sunlight worshiping bliss given a robust, hefty makeover. There is the feedback and massive chunk of “Carved to the Bone”, the rollicking “Headless Dawn” (with yet another spooky, classic synth segment), the “Evilyn” invoking rumble of “Cadaverous Stench”, musty lurches of “Descend to the Beyond” and “Chained and Dragged” and the feral burst of “Defleshed” (“Shreds of Flesh”?). It’s all just damn perfect and as with the first two releases will be an unquestionable album of the year contender for me.

We weren’t in Dark Descent that much. He had the license to press The Tomb Awaits. Our main label was the German FDA Rekotz. So far, it’s really good to be at Metal Blade. It’s like a new dimension. A lot more people got to know about us and that’s thanks to the label. Underground labels don’t reach that long, sort of, but they’re doing a hell of a job.

Has to be neat being on a label that once had Vomitory and now they have another Swedish DM band in you guys.

Absolutely… It feels damn good.

It’s been a crazy few years for you guys. First the debut was lauded as one of the apex’s of Swedish death metal, then a great follow up and now, Raging Death is released on Metal Blade. Did you envision this back in 1991 when you started?

Hell no! This is like a dream. Couldn’t imagine that in the past. Just saying those big labels and names back then was huge and now we are in one of those. It’s unbelievable, but still fun as hell.  I enjoy every minute.

What are you most proud in these last few years and those events?

I guess that it’s the massive and positive feedback my music has gotten. That’s also something I couldn’t quite imagine when I restarted the band again.

So what did prompt you to restart the band after 20 years?

The biggest reason was the huge nostalgia and I was not happy about the death metal that was being created. It had become terrible. The feeling, the passion and especially the riff making was gone.

Do you feel that your debut helped spark the current Swedish death metal revival that’s occurring in all corners of the world — from the US to Eastern Europe?

I don’t know. Maybe it has helped a bit. Or maybe there were many thinking the same thing at the same time. Tricky question that.

Obviously due to your font, song titles color schemes and even a few nods here and , folks are going to say Entombed is your primary influence. Fair assessment, or just too obvious to the casual observer?

A true follower of the old school music should know that we weren’t the only ones using that font in the day. And by that, also know about more bands from Sweden that also sounded exactly the same, and had the same sound, also playing the Swedish death metal. I think all the bands were influenced by each other and did their own style of it. So did we.

But there are some pretty obvious nods like the phantasm-y sounding part on “The Cemetery Horrors” from the new album and” Euthanasia” from the debut, right?

Well.. phantasm melody is excellent in every way and has its classical ’80s feeling and by that, we did our own horror feeling out of it. The Macgyver-theme would never fit us! Imagine Raging Death to be a horror movie and when the keyboard parts in “The Cemetery Horrors” begin, it’s the end of the movie and the credits are rolling.

So what is it about THAT sound that makes it so great and the why is there the sudden interest in that sound again 20 years later?

Well… The sound is quite special. Only works with downtuned guitars. It’s like it was meant to be a DM sound. For example, the well known middle of “Left Hand Path” has this middle section that just tears your soul apart. And as a guitarist, you’re looking for the special feeling when hitting the string so you can hear a flow of electricity and distortion through the speakers. Fingertip feeling to find that special sound. The sounds themselves have always been a mark of the Swedeath. And not many bands beside Dismember continued to use it until they split up. So I guess it was pretty much missing out there.  Imagine all those classics with a modern or mega distorted sound… Nope. Wouldn’t work.

The bands that started that sound — namely the big four Entombed, Grave, Dismember and Unleashed — have all gone through some sort of issues. Notably Entombed’s style change, Grave’s hiatus, Dismember breaking up and Unleashed (despite Hell’s Unleashed) surprisingly being the most consistent. What is your opinion on how those bands and sounds have fared over the last 20 years since the glory days of 1991.

Hmm… It’s like you wrote that those bands went in another direction after a time. Such a change is normal if they want to explore new things and find new twists. But it is like a lottery, I would say. You might lose fans and you can also win some new ones. I could easily say that none of those bands made a better album than their first 2-3 ones. It’s like a change came on all of them and they felt forced to suddenly become perfect… sort of. I still prefer the era up until 95 from the Swedish old school death metal. Then it became another style in my ears. To me, it was only Dismember who gave the sound and the feeling the longest.

Lets say you are on a desert island. What one album from that era would you take with you and why?

I would go for something with Grave. Soulless or Into the Grave… and why is that? Those albums are done by passion and with such atmosphere and sound, that they’ll eat you up from the inside.

And are there less obvious, or more recent or current bands in the  style that you enjoy?

Well, good old Cemetery, Nirvana 2002 and God Macabre among Nihilist and Carnage from the past. And new bands such as Tormented, Blood Mortized among a lot of other HM2 bands are also great at keeping the tradition alive

Speaking of HM2 bands, how exactly did you get your guitar sound? Was there a particular sound you were going for, or are you trying to forge Entrails’ own sound?

How to get the sound is pretty easy. The HM2 pedal was lined into a floorpod and then straight into the soundcard, and the computer. With some adjustments I had a basic sound to continue to sculpture in the mix. Entrails is looking for that early sound the whole time and by that, also finding our own sound combined with the old and fat Sunlight sound. And so far we have been having a great guitar sound.

You had mentioned to me casually before that some of the riffs on Raging Death were from 15 years ago. On your three albums, how many songs and riffs are from your first run as a band and how many are new?

You could say that I’ve used 100% of the old songs taken from the ’90s on our first album Tales from the Morgue. On Tomb Awaits, I used a bit less and it was around 50% of the old songs. The reason was that I wanted to create some new stuff as well to see if the new thinking in creation was good enough. On Raging Death we have like 15-20% of old stuff, and also here we wanted to make new tunes and not use all the gold at once so to speak.

You’ve got some guys in the band from grindcore band Birdflesh. How did them becoming part of Entrails come about? Are they full members of guest musicians for hire?

Yeah. First, Jocke (Svensson – bass/vocals) joined Entrails for the demos and have ’em unleashed and he was the man for the brutal vox. Then others wanted different and the band had to expand and become more solid. Adde (Mintroulis – drums) joined the band after the first album, and the reason was that shows were approaching and we needed a good drummer, so he was happy about it. They’re now all full members.

Are you the primary song writer or so the other guys help out with the actual song writing?

Yeah. You could say that I am the main writer of the songs. When I have done a song into a recorded demo, the rest come with input and we sculpture the songs together. Jocke then makes some lyrics that fit in. It’s a very good way to create music for the style that Entrails has. I don’t believe in the way where too many are involved with creating a song. Too many ideas can blur the creation of a song.

As much as I love the last two albums, your debut still sticks with me. Especially “Voices and Euthanasia”. What are your favorite songs so far?

I get new favorites every day as long as I listen to it all. At work I listen to a lot of our own stuff, analyzing in what we could have done better and so on. That should help me make even better music in the future. And for now it’s “Carved to the Bone” that brings me in the mood. “Voices” that song is also very neat.

I have been dying to hear a cover song from you guys — seeing as many of your peers like to cover tracks from their influences. What songs would you cover?

We are doing a cover on this new album, though, it’s bonus material on the European version of the vinyl. It appears on the limited digipak too. The song we do is “Dark Endless” by Marduk. We didn’t want to do a cover of a band having a similar style and especially the buzzsaw sound. So we did a classic and also from a huge inspiration source from the past.

And finally when are you going to come to the States and tour? I’m sure Metal Blade wants that right?

I’m sure they want that, but we don’t have anything planned for the moment, as we have guys in the band that have other projects and things that can make them unavailable for such an event. But we are not saying no if a request or something shows up. If it all feels right and everyone is available there wouldn’t be any problems coming over to do some tour!

https://www.facebook.com/Entrails666

ENTRAILS formed in the 90s, but split up before they were able to release a demo or even an album. It took them until 2008 to come back when guitarist Jimmy Lundqvist rediscovered some old tapes. In a moment of nostalgia he decided that they deserved to be released as they should have been originally. With modern recording technology, the first ENTRAILS demo could finally take shape. After releasing another demo in 2009 ENTRAILS recorded and released their debut album Tales From The Morgue in 2010.

Just a year later The Tomb Awaits was released, an album that gained worldwide attention of music fans of the extreme and was considered by many as the best death metal album of 2011!

Comments guitarist Jimmy Lundqvist on the deal with Metal Blade: “Being on Metal Blade has been a dream since Slayer´s Hell Awaits came out and given the chance to be there as well is just pure magic! It is with honourable excitement that we have signed to Metal Blade!”

Right now ENTRAILS are in the final stages of songwriting for their third studio album to be recorded during the summer! “Our upcoming third opus is filled with old-school and rotten bastards of songs. Groovy and heavy like a pile of flesh that will be like a punch in your face. To us it´s the perfect step from The Tomb Awaits album…beware!” 

ENTRAILS is:

Joakim Svensson – vocals/bass

Jimmy Lundqvist – guitar

Mathias Nilsson – guitar

Adde Mitroulis – drums

http://www.facebook.com/Entrails666

You’d think with the album’s cover color palette, title, logo font (and even a black and white photo of an iconic cross in the CD booklet!) that Entrails would continue their Left Hand Path worship. Heck, the first real track starts with the goddamn riff from the album’s title track and even has a haunting Phantasm-y mid section. However, with newer songs (a lot of Tales From the Morgue was actually written in the ’90s), a (believe it or not) beefier production, and some tighter, focused songs The Tomb Await not only improves on the debut, it culls more from Clandestine and also imbues yet another classic, if not the apex Stockholm homage album: Bloodbath‘s Resurrection Through Carnage. I’d even venture to say The Tomb Awaits is better than Nightmares Made Flesh and The Fathomless Mastery.Yeah, I said it! It’s that good!

Maybe it’s just Dan Swano’s super huge mix or his monstrous guest vocals on “Eaten By the Dead”, but his fingerprints are all over this album. The Bloodbath-hue is by present in two ways. First, the killer the guitar tone, as the moments where a lone guitar delivers an opening riff of bridge with that signature, mid-range buzz are simply goose-bump inducing (i.e. starts of “Crawling Death”, “Eaten by the Dead”, “To Live is to Rot”, “Collection of Cracked Heads” just to name a couple). And, second, the punchier, catchy songs that all seem to imbue the likes of “Like Fire”, “Bathe in Blood”, “So You Die” and “Ways to the Grave”. Not that Entrails is ripping off Bloodbath or even Entombed, but The Tomb Awaits is a nostalgic, well done homage that has to be considered one of the best offerings of the style and genre since it crawled from the sewers of Stockholm.

With maybe the exception of the too short “Crawling Death”, every song is a perfectly crafted ode to the band’s obvious peers. And with a truly massive drum sound (otherwise awesome label mates Cryptborn could learn a thing or two about that) and a guitar tone seemingly rendered from what can only be some sort of illegally modified Boss HM-2 pedal on steroids, the album is simply a instant classic. I’ve listened to the album over 20 times since getting it, and each time is as enjoyable, foot tapping and grin inducing as the last.

I could go on and on about moments of The Tomb Awaits; the nod to “Left Hand Path” for the opening “Unleashed Wrath”. The sick Dan Swano segment of “Eaten by the Dead”, surprisingly melodic “To Live is to Rot” and killer opening riff (though I wish they had used it again) and solo in  “Undead” or rollicking “The Slithering Below”. The there’s the fucking SICK groove and subsequent moments about 2 minutes into “End of all Existence”, the chorus of “Collection of Cracked Heads”, utterly awesome, Dismember channeling  “Remains in Red”, restrained lurch of “Total Death”, or perfectly paced album closer “Unspeakable Obscenities”.

The only downside to The Tomb Awaits (other than some pretty simple though suitably retro lyrics) is that is ends and I have to wait another year or so before another Entrails album. It’s a good thing I had a slot reserved on my year end list, as The Tomb Awaits is undoubtedly going to be in the  running with Fleshgod Apocalypse‘s Agony for my album of 2011. Gah! The pressure!

HOLY FUCKEN FUCKITY FUCK FUCK.

So there’s been a pretty nice movement of retro death metal resurrecting the old Stockholm sound in the last few years; bands from back in the day reforming (Séance, General Surgery, Evocation, Interment), some nice odes and homage’s (Chaosbreed, Kaamos, Hail of Bullets, Bloodbath, Lifeless, Rib Spreader, God Among Insects) the old stalwarts still plugging away (Grave, Dismember, Unleashed) and even the yanks are having a solid crack at it (Fatalist, Black Breath, Invasion). But I’ll be god damned if the debut full-length album from Sweden’s Entrails isn’t the best retro-Stockholm death metal release since Bloodbath’s debut.

Much like Evocation and Interment, God Macabre, Gorement and such, Entrails were around back in the early 90s, but never got enough recognition or distribution to put together anything other than a few underground releases and demos. So founder Jimmy ‘Bloodspill’ Lundquist decided to get some folks together (including Jocke Svensson of Birdflesh to do vocals) and redo all the tracks he wrote back in the day and release them.

And that’s what sets Tales from the Morgue apart; instead of sounding like an homage or tribute album—many of these songs were apparently written back in 1991 as demos—but are just now getting some professional recording. Not only do they sound like they are 20-years old, they FEEL like songs from a bygone era: All the riffs are so classically nostalgic and retro without being forced, much like Relapse’s reissue of God Macabre’s The Winterlong, it sounds like a remastered (a brilliant mix and master from Dan Swano) reissue of a lost classic, not a 2010 release. The primary influences are obvious; as if you couldn’t tell from the logo/font; Nihilist, Entombed’s Left Hand Path (there’s even a very similar Phastasm-ish nod/tinkle to Left Hand Path’s title track in “Euthanasia” ), Grave’s Into the Grave and I hear some God Macabre in the somber, doomy strains here and there.

The guitar tone of the album is to die for and is simply the best I’ve heard since Bloodbath’s debut (yes, even better than Hail of Bullets and Fatalist) , mixing a super deep, down-tuned buzz that has some of Grave’s almost overbearing, chunky debut tone in there as well. Mix that tone with an utterly thunderous rhythm section and songs and riffs that are sucked straight from a Stockholm time machine, and the end result is utterly mind blowing. All of the 10 actual songs (there’s a classically cheesy/spooky intro) are brilliant, with not a single filler or weak track. And to boot, they all balance catchy galloping riffs, some utterly sick fucking grooves and plenty of moody, scrawling solos. Jocke Svensson also has a perfectly toned deep but not overdone voice that’s just as nostalgic as the music.

From the classic, cantankerous opening trot of “Blood Red”, through the melodic, Dismember-ish canter of “Voices” (just check out that stunning mid section at 1:48), massively hefty chunk of “Entrails”, the aforementioned “Euthanasia” (with a thunderously galloping opening riff that’s simply sick), raucously heavy trot of “Evil Obsession”, melancholic throes of the mid paced “Triumph of the Sinners” and atmospheric crawling closer “The Curse of Death”, every note and riff makes me so happy I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or go on a metal fueled killing spree. My only minor quibble is that the album’s couple of blast beats (“Entrails” and “The Morgue”) get completely washed out due to the production.

There’s no doubt in my mind that if this album had been released back in 1990 or 1991, we would be talking about it in the same breath as Dark Recollections, Left Hand Path, Like an Ever Flowing Stream and Into the Grave. As it stands, Tales from the Morgue not only surpasses Interment’s (excellent) Into the Crypts of Blasphemy as 2010’s best retro/Stockholm styled death metal album, it might be one of my favorite albums of the last five years or more. Tales From the Morgue, like Bloodbath’s Resurrection Through Carnage, should be considered an modern day classic.

Thanks to Scott Alisoglu for the heads up on this. Fucking get this or die.