Nihilist>>ENTOMBED - SWEDEN

ENTOMBED - INFERNO - THREEMAN RECORDINGS/CANDLELIGHT USA
This North American version of Inferno includes an extra CD titled Averno with three extra songs, two videos and two 'video edit' versions of Retaliation and Albino Flogged In Black; the latter being a Stillborn cover. The 13-track first CD opens with Retaliation, the song has a sound and pace that is much like a Kyuss song circa early '90s. The Fix Is In follows the opener and the first reaction of this reviewer is to make sure that this is Inferno and not the Wolverine Blues CD. Incinerator, That's When I Became A Satanist and much of the rest that follow continue where the previous songs left off. Young And Dead and Skeleton Of Steel do however provide some speed and real aggression, perhaps providing a more appropriate way to convey the feel of an album that includes other titles like Descent Into Inferno and Public Burning. Overall, listening to Inferno/Averno is like going back to 1993, this is what Entombed must have done after the Wolverine Blues album. - Anna Tergel

ENTOMBED - UNREAL ESTATE - CANDLELIGHT
How the mighty have fallen! It seems that even Entombed cannot get past how low it has fallen. Entombed, which recently reminded us how good it once was by releasing a disc of early demos, has gone from the forerunners of the metal nation to a quasi-rock band of sorts reminiscent of Danzig and Metallica with its roots and talent nowhere in sight. The name Unreal Estate says it all. Except, there is nothing unreal about this release. Bands come, bands wimp out and bands fall into the trap of formulatic imitation. Working with an orchestra is nothing new for a rock band. Deep Purple did it 35 years ago. Metallica did it and claimed to be original. Scorpions did it and realized what a big seller it could be - ha! Rage, Therion, Yngwie Malmsteen, etc etc have been there. Funny thing is, Unreal Estate is the recording of a performance by Entombed at Stockholm's Royal Opera House with the band surrounded by dancers with music rearranged to suit the choreography. In other words, there is little here to listen to or look for in terms of novelty or amazement. At least a video of the band's performance might yield some surprises, although the sight of five ex-heavy metallers on stage with a bunch of dancers is more likely to elicit laughter than new fans.
The album features flawless performances of the band's latter day songs completely eschewing the band's earlier albums save an outro. This one is for hardcore Entombed fans only. - Ali "The Metallian"

NIHILIST - same - CANDLELIGHT
Rare demos and classic recordings eventually make their way back and are re-released but at least in this case Threeman Recordings is probably the right label to be touching this material. If anything it is surprising that a CD complete with all of Nihilist’s demos hasn’t come sooner, although some songs like Revel In Flesh and Shreds Of Flesh have already made it onto CDs in one form or another - on the Clandestine album and the Stranger Aeons mini-CD respectively.
This 14-song collection provides a very good look back at the initial Venom influence on the then teenagers and the quick morph to the now famous Swedish death metal sound. This Entombed predecessor which, at various times during its short existence, featured future Unleashed and Dismember members certainly turned out to be of one of the most influential bands of the late '80s. - Anna Tergel

ENTOMBED - SERPENT SAINTS - TEN AMENDMENTS - CANDLELIGHT  
After suffering through the drivel that these former heroes unloaded upon the scene in the last ten years, and laughing at all of it, Serpent Saints is an almost implausible listen from Entombed. Indeed, during the last decade anyone craving for something heavy could have gone for anything but Entombed! The album is distorted, crunchy and heavy. It is an all-out and complete attempt at recovering lost ground from a band that was viewed as a lost cause by most honest observers.
Before anyone starts thinking this is a new Left Hand Path (the band’s 1990 debut) it is imperative to emphasize that as heavy as Serpent Saints is it still features some hardcore moments, hoarse vocals and doomy music. It is not all a bed of (metallic) roses here all of a sudden. The band’s dick of an album (see front cover) does compete with or better 1993’s Wolverine Blues however. The album’s back cover gets the order and the titles for the album’s songs wrong with impeccable failure, but track number four Thy Kingdom Koma, Ministry, The Dead, The Dying And The Dying To Be Dead and When In Sodom, in particular, with its Slayer inspired opening stand out with that much extra power. It is a trip hearing the band pull a couple of crushing riffs out of its hats again that it introduced to the world in 1990 and later abandoned.
It is like-wise exciting to hear the band’s new line-up still has what it takes even if the re-conversion seems suspect to some of us. Either way, notice the label’s write-up claiming “this is Entombed’s best work since Wolverine Blues” and ask yourself why the forerunning group had to abandon itself for so long only to have to do a full-circle to matter again. - Ali “The Metallian”

There's no need to introduce the legendary force known as Entombed. The groundbreaking collective that gave the world classics such as Left Hand Path, Clandestine and Wolverine Blues is also renowned for pioneering Stockholm's signature Sunlight Studios sound. Since then, the group has floundered only once (1999's confoundingly bizarre Same Difference), but Entombed erased that error completely and effectively with the awesome Uprising and the thrash-obsessed chaos known as Morning Star. Entombed's newest record is called Serpent Saints, and the impressive album is a return to the group's renowned sound of yore - fear not though, this isn't a nostalgia fest. Instead, Entombed has re-embraced its founding purpose and put out an effort that is doing the group's legacy proud. Metallian spoke to guitar player Alex Hellid about the band's latest foray as well as its initial period. By David Perri 12.10.2007.

METALLIAN: The new record harkens back to the band's classic sound on Left Hand Path and Wolverine Blues. Why did you choose to go back to that style?
HELLID: It kind of just happened. We had been straying from it for some time, playing whatever we wanted to do. I've been longing for the energy of the earlier stuff recently. We did a tour with Unleashed and Dismember in Europe, and we started rehearsing a few older songs just for that tour because it was a real death metal package. So we did a couple of Clandestine songs we hadn't done in a long time and we re-discovered how much fun it is to play those songs. We wanted to get back to the energy of the band that made the first albums. And this pretty much feels like a new band for us at this point, we have a few new players and, like we try on every album, we wanted to capture that naïve energy from the first couple of albums. It's energy that comes from not really being familiar with the studio environment and everybody's a little nervous and you do what you do but you don't really know what you're doing. The older you get and the more albums you do and the more studio time you have... the danger in that is getting too comfortable and thinking that you know everything. That's when it usually starts to get boring. I really wanted to try to get back to and capture the feeling of early Slayer or something like that. We spent a lot of time with the new album trying to make it sound not too polished or modern. We just wanted it to sound raw. We didn't want it to feel over-produced. We wrote and recorded at the same time so if something sounded the way we wanted it to sound the first time it was played on the drums, that's what you hear on the album. We didn't record stuff over and over as you often do: first you do a demo and then you try to perfect it. A lot of times you feel that the demo had something that you didn't quite capture on the album version, but the album version sonically sounds more expensive usually because you spent more money in the studio. But I always feel that I prefer the rough mix to the finished mix. There's always something in that first time you put something down to tape. So this whole album is sonically about trying to capture the raw energy that happens when you record. I think we managed to do that pretty well. It's like with the early Slayer stuff where you can really hear what's going on. It's one guitar and then another guitar kicks in, it's not a wall of guitars.

METALLIAN: You mentioned demos and rough mixes, so I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the Nihilist demos (note: Nihilist was Entombed's original incarnation circa the late '80s) that were just officially released a couple of years ago.
HELLID: It's so weird listening to that stuff. I dug out all the boxes with the old tapes and went to the studio and started going through it. Just hearing that stuff and knowing that we were, like, 13 years old... we sat there wondering how the hell we made those sounds. Just a couple years earlier we had been listening to KISS and Iron Maiden and those kinds of bands. And you're wondering, what happened (laughs)? And then in between songs on the rehearsal tapes, the voices that we spoke in sound like very, very young female kids (laughs). We didn't include that when we released the demos, but we might do an extended version with that stuff included if we get around to it. But I was pleasantly surprised when we went back and listened to the tapes. Because back then, when we were starting out, nobody thought that we were playing music. Everybody was like, 'You make noise but when are going to start playing real music?' Now that we listen back to it... we realise we knew what were doing (laughs).

METALLIAN: For sure, those demos sound great. I really like that demo release.
HELLID: Yeah, we liked it too (laughs).

METALLIAN: Was there a lot of nostalgia when you were listening to those old tapes?
HELLID: Definitely. That whole period is so... it was only a couple of years, but it felt like it was ten years. It's so weird. It's the whole thing with being a kid, like waiting for Christmas. The day before Christmas is the longest day of the year. It felt like it was a lot longer than just two years.

METALLIAN: What are the goals for Entombed in 2007? You've already accomplished so much, what is there still to accomplish?
HELLID: Over our whole career we've been building the band up and then something happens, like fighting a record company. After that, it feels like we're starting from zero and then building it up again. A couple of years ago we decided that we wanted to”¦ when Music For Nations got sold we decided that instead of having a new label and recording a few albums with them, that we'd start our own thing, Threeman Recordings. It was about bringing the catalogue back home and building something out of that. So that's one of the goals now. We've been a band for more than half my life, so all the work that we've put into it we can have back with Threeman. If one day we decide we're not going to make new music and we decide we want to work with what we have, we can do that with Threeman. It kind of pisses me off when I walk into a record store and don't see our releases, or when I hear people say they can't find our older records. If somebody wants one of our records, I want to be sure to provide them to everyone who wants them. And to do that, you need control over it just to make it available. I don't want our material bought and sold by another company, I want us to take care of it. It should be us doing that. So that's one of my goals, to make sure that everything we've done in Entombed is available, whether it's through the internet or wherever else. We don't feel good about it floating around and not knowing. Many bands, after a while, have no control over their music and we don't want that to happen to us. On the musical side, you always feel that you have something more that you want to prove. When you do an album, you're always trying to make it the best album ever. And then when you're done, you listen back to it and you want to make an even better one. And that's the drive for everybody. As long as you have that drive, you're OK. As long as you always think you can write a better song. And then there are always places you want to go and there are always places you want to see. If not, you get bored. Music is the best way to travel (laughs).
You go somewhere and play a show and meet and hang out with a lot of people. You get bored if you go somewhere as a tourist and hang out with other tourists.

METALLIAN: Entombed has some fresh blood in the band with a few new members. Does it still feel like Entombed with these new guys?
HELLID: Very much so. Of course it's different, but even from the beginning we had line-up changes all the way through. Now it's me and L-G (Petrov, vocals) left from the early albums. But the way I see it, and the way it feels, is that Entombed is just bigger than the pieces. That's what makes it what it is. For some reason, when we play, all we have to do is make sure we don't fuck with the spirit of the band. We have to make sure we don't fuck that up. There's something that happens when we come together as Entombed and it becomes this Entombed entity with whoever is in the band. And I hope that's what other people think. With every album we kind of changed, even between the first and the second album. And even back then, people asked 'Why have you changed so much' (laughs)? So the changing part of Entombed is what we've always done. Of course, it's been a big change going to one guitar but that's also been a big challenge. But if you don't have those challenges, it gets boring.

METALLIAN: You wrote with Nicke (Andersson, ex-Entombed/The Hellacopters/Death Breath) for the first time in a long time for Serpent Saints. How was that experience?
HELLID: We recorded one song with Nicke that we haven't finished yet. We did a show with him where he played guitar with us last summer. He's been doing The Hellacopters for so long that I guess he's started coming up with music that he knew he wouldn't be able to use in The Hellacopters. And now he's got his Death Breath death metal band, so he's channelling that music into Death Breath. But he had a couple of songs that he thought would be cool to do with us. So we recorded one of them, but we didn't have a lyric in time for this album. We still have half an album worth of material that we'd like to finish this year. Hopefully we'll put it out early next year, depending on when we get around to finishing it. It's cool that he's into the metal thing again.

METALLIAN: Is there ever talk of a full reunion with Nicke?
HELLID: Not really. He likes playing guitar and even though he plays drums in Death Breath, I don't think a reunion would be a good idea (laughs). I mean, he's got all these other projects he's doing and with Entombed we play all the time... he has more than he can handle already and we're so busy, so I don't think a reunion would be possible.

METALLIAN: I've been an Entombed fan for a long time and there's always been one aspect of the band I've always wondered about, the Satanism. Are you guys doing that in an ironic way? Is it done in a humorous way, or is it serious?
HELLID: It's definitely serious, but not in the way of us being religious. For me, if you're doing it that way it's just the same as Christianity, it's two sides of the same coin. Entombed and Satanism is more a statement of being the rebel or taking some of the thoughts that are associated with Satanism, things like 'you are your own master' and all those things. We very much believe that you should decide for yourself and you should decide on your own what you believe in. But we're far from a religious band. Satanism, when you do it that way, it's Christianity. I know what I am and I know what I believe in. It's not that we're against people who believe in certain things”¦ for all I care, people can believe in fly shit (laughs). It's what you do to other people that matters. Believe in what you want to believe in, as long as you behave (laughs). When people do stupid things and blame a book or something, that's when you've got a good source to get pissed off and write a song. A lot of bands use political ways of saying think for yourself, and they'll say this is bad and blah blah blah. But we definitely don't want to be a political band, so as long as you keep it on the Satanic side there's no danger in being mixed up with people that think they know what's going on because they believe in this or that god. And, of course, the devil's got the best music, too. When I get more time I'm going to read all the religious books that I can, because there's great stories and there's things to learn everywhere. It's just what you do with it. If you're going to be philosophical about religion, it's what people do with it. People justify things because they read it somewhere, and that's just not thinking. That goes against everything that's said in the books. People use religion for power. And if they can fool someone else, they do. And that's something I never want to be part of.

METALLIAN: Where does your aggression still come from after so many albums?
HELLID: All those things. I'm kind of mellow, I don't go out and fight people on a Saturday night and all those things. I try to stay away from the news because it depresses me (laughs). But whenever you hear something, it's very easy to get pissed off. It's usually just what people do to one another and try to get away with just because of some stupid rule. That's just ridiculous. It's been five thousand years or something of civilization and it's still like it's year one but with better toys. But Entombed's not trying to preach to anyone. People know what's good and bad, it's just that you can choose to be bad or good. When people want to be bad, they are bad. When people want to be good, they are good. I kind of enjoy the chaos of it all. That's why we're not a political band. I like the chaos of it, because out of chaos comes good things. Sometimes when we write it just happens because you're looking at something and then you write what you see. You write a song about what you understand things to be. Sometimes you're for things, and sometimes you're against. And sometimes you're just amazed at what you see around you.

METALLIAN: Entombed is still closely associated with Sunlight Studios and the Sunlight Studios' sound. I think that's pretty cool. What are your thoughts on the association?
HELLID: I wish Sunlight Studios was still there. We did our first four albums at Sunlight Studios, and the first few were recorded in this really, really small studio. And then on the fourth one, it was the new Sunlight Studios. It was the same house, but the studio was in a different form. The old Sunlight Studios was a small demo studio and we just managed, with the help of Tomas (Skogsberg, owner of Sunlight Studios), to get so much out of it. Of course, there were no computers or anything, so to create the mixes most of the time you needed four pairs of hands to help pull out the sound and turn knobs and get the mix. The mix was live, and all the faders were up and when you got a certain part you had to put the faders back down just at the right moment. I haven't been to the third studio that he has now because it's out in the countryside. But you never know, maybe we'll go there and record something. I haven't heard anything that's been done there lately, but Tomas is a great guy.

METALLIAN: What are your thoughts on a classic Entombed track like Rotten Soil?
HELLID: I like that song a lot. We played it live for a long time. I don't think I've ever had anyone ask me about it (laughs). It's the most technical song on that album (note: Wolverine Blues). We haven't played it live for a long while, though. Now that you mention it, I'm going to see if we can pick it up again for the live show.

METALLIAN: Cool! And speaking of the live show, hopefully we'll be seeing you back in Montreal and in all of Canada some time soon on tour.
HELLID: Definitely! I hope so, too. Back in the day we were over like four times a year, but it hasn't been that way for a while. I don't why, but we we're going to try making it back. It's really not that far. Sometimes we travel like 13 hours just to go Denmark. The world is getting smaller and you can get anywhere in pretty much 10 hours so we're going to try to come back.

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