HEADLESS DAWN

I'm fully aware that terms along the lines of 'shameless worship' and similar are put to use on this blog somewhat often to describe certain bands and their releases. I won't dance around it, most of any new music from new bands that I tend to develop interests in these days generally always lifts heavy influence from various groups from the 80's and early 90's. This is a rule that blankets across pretty much all styles and sub genres that I post about. I like to think that most people who read this crap (and other similar blogs from around the place) would say the same about their own tastes. I don't think this is a bad thing. Maybe it's the pessimist (I prefer realist) in me, maybe it's an age thing (I will turn 30 this year) but I no longer really hold faith in any human being able to create something original that is actually worth my time, effort and money these days. I find that I just simply don't get a kick out of anything with a new style or sound. Though I still find that I get excited about new bands doing old things all the time. Such is the case, that whenever a new album comes about from any band doing their interpretation of the utterly brilliant early 90's Swedish Death Metal sound created by legends like Nihilist, Grave and Dismember, I'll always take the time to investigate. Don't pretend that I haven't made many posts about the style on this blog over the years.
The new Entrails album, "Raging Death" is a funny one in that technically the band are a first wave Swedish group, though they've only made a name for themselves internationally in the last three or four years. The story goes that the original line up were active for a chunk of time over the early and mid 90's, never releasing anything, disbanding in 1998. Central member and songwriter Jimmy Lundqvist then decided to reform the band in 2008 with a fresh line up. With his leadership they recorded and released a couple demo tapes, caught the attention of F.D.A. Rekotz and released two LP's, and then Metal Blade Records decided they were interested. The result is this new LP. I've mentioned it previously, I held no real enthusiasm for these guys before I heard a preview track on the Metal Blade site months ago, but this album is amazingly top shelf Swedish Death Metal revivalism, and possibly the best contribution to the style since "Into The Grave". Big call I know, but there are no flaws with "Raging Death", regardless of how borderline plagueristic various aspects of it seem to be. Anyone even vaguely familiar with Entombed's opus "Left Hand Path" should be able to pick many of the similarities I am speaking about. From smaller aspects like the virtually identical logo and the likeness in the artworks style, to the more obvious things like the hugely familiar riffs, tremolo picking, hints of melody, and of course that Sunlight Guitar Sound. We all know that the sound is a prerequisite of the style, but I'm confident in saying that the tone the band achieve here is probably the best any band has sounded in the last 15 years. It's crushing. So impressed I am with this album, that I am back giving the bands earlier stuff another go. All of it is noticeably rougher in nature, but it's not without it's own charm. I find I'm paying the most amount of attention to the bands debut album, "Tales From The Morgue".
Maybe it's again the pessimist in me, but I can't help but feel that a good chunk of Metal Blade's interest in financing this album would be based in this style of Death Metal's resurgence in popularity over the last two years or so. That shouldn't detract from how great "Raging Death" is though. If there's any one band that could be responsible for really introducing this style of metal to a younger generation, Entrails would certainly be one of the front runners.