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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A death 'n' roll classic, May 10, 2005
Blending the heaviness of death metal with the swagger of rock `n' roll, this album establishes the "death `n' roll" blueprint for future Entombed albums. To put it bluntly, this album crushes. Black Sabbath is a strong influence on the bluesy, midtempo grooves here. The production is perfect; the drums are punchy and resonant, and the guitars are heavy, yet clear. Sick wah-wah leads and guttural vocals round out this fearsome package. The songs are concise, and the arrangements are effective, and best of all, the album comes packaged with a comic featuring everyone's favorite X-Man, Wolverine.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Marvel Comics and Death Metal, August 2, 2003
When I first started listening to Entombed, I heard the song "You were Supposed to Rot" off of Left Hand Path and was instantly addicted to the band. Its because it had feeling to it and the aggressiveness in the album, it was enticingly real. Unlike many of the death metal acts I had heard on the past, they didn't simply focus their thoughts on songs trying to depict images of arcane skies. They instead strayed from topic to topic, from painting after brutal painting, inflicting an interesting diversity on the listener.
After that, the Hollowman E.P. came along, and it said something I was prepared for. It said that Marvel comics would bring the next full-length album to me and, honestly, I couldn't believe what it was saying.
A death metal act doing a "soundtrack" for a character in the marvel universe?
This couldn't be true.
O, but it was. While pushing to become edgier, the normally conservative Marvel comics thought they needed a soundtrack to go along with X-Men's Wolverine. So, instead of going out and getting themselves of pop sensation or a piece of fluff, they decided to make an odd move and endorsed this album because of the song "Wolverine Blues." In that edition of this album, Wolverine is prominently displayed above a picture of what would normally be the album's cover, his claws aggressively rending the picture into scraps. Inside, there was an addition placed with the lyrics as well, a mini-comic of sorts entitled Just Don't Look In Its Eyes, showing the things that the song charismatically displayed. An engine of aggression and anger meeting a bear was shown, its pictures accented by a song with lyrics about someone "with an appetite for war always hungering for more," and a battle ensued. Thus, a picture was painted that indeed fit the song and the heavy beats echoing the thoughts of a growling voice.
But there's more. The rest of the album, it wasn't some softcore batch of melodies done for comic code approval. No, it was a death metal album. With lines like "when your in hell you can talk to my voice" and "eggs will hatch within your head" (Rotten Soil)
mixing with "a matter of time, a matter of slugs, until the rats are fed" (Hollowman), it became obvious that Entombed was making what its fans were wanting, something with teeth, and that Marvel was sponsoring it. Driven sounds that went into what I would classify as heavy music mixed, with primal ideals and beats mixing with sometimes interestingly transcribed ideas. Yes, Marvel had purchased themselves a snarling sound, one that spoke of devils and murder and the not-so-stillborn cousin of happiness we all call loathing, and the land was green and good.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not Your Father's Death Metal, December 20, 2003
This album was probably the experimental peak for Entombed. Though lacking the furious speed of their previous masterpieces, "Left Hand Path" and "Clandestine", "Wolverine Blues" brings in a slower, more developed sound that actually serves to highten the impact of the bands strengths rather than weaken them, sounding like a Black Sabbath meets Sepultura mish mash.
LG's vocals only sound more menacing when you can understand what he's saying, and the guitar work, while much slower paced than in previous efforts, does a much better job of showcasing the masterful fretwork that this band is known for. Lyricly, the songs presented in this selection display a maturity and depth not evident in "Clandestine" or LHP. "Heavens Die" and "Hollowman" in particular look just as good on paper as they sound in your stereo.
Unfortunatley, even Entombed can serve up the occaisional floater. "Blood Song" is just awful. Yuck. Hopefully, the guys will leave the vampire songs to Type O Negative in the future. LG sounds whiney, the lyrics are ridiculous, and the song seems to go on forever.
If you just can't live without a good neck-snapping tune, "Eyemaster", "Rotten Soil", and "Out of Hand" fill the bill nicely, being the three fastest songs on the disc and more closley resembling the bands earlier work.
Bottom line: If you're a deathmetal purist, in the vein of Morbid Angel or Cannibal Corpse, this isn't for you. If you enjoy slower paced, but equally heavy "sludge" metal, this album is a real winner, and definatley one of my all time favorites. If not for the incredibly awful "Blood Song", this would be five star effort.
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