Well folks, here it is! Entrails‘ newest album, The Tomb Awaits. For old school Stockholm death metal fans, the follow-up to my 2010’s album of the year and arguably the most anticipated album of 2011; the cherry on top of a pie that’s already been filled with the likes of Undead Creep, Brutally Deceased, Demonical, Morbus Chron, Revolting, Miasmal and some killer reissues.

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!

 

 

 

 

 

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