Author: Rok Klemše
Artist: Entombed A.D.
Label: Century Media
Release: year_month
Length: 51:12
Rating: 3.5/5
Back to the Front couldn’t be a more fitting title for the new album from Swedish death metal veterans Entombed. Not just because their last studio effort, Serpent Saints – The Ten Amendments, came out a good seven years ago, but also because of the fight over the band’s name, which delayed the new album by a whole year. The original members couldn’t agree on who owns the name, and in the end the court, naturally, had to settle it. The only original member currently in Entombed is Alex Hellid (guitar), while vocalist L.G. Petrov put out this album with what is basically the Serpent Saints lineup.
So, with Back to the Front, did the legendary Swedes fight their way back to the front lines of death metal? Yes and no. Although the album is technically the debut of Entombed A.D., it’s obviously a logical continuation of Entombed, all the way back to the cult Left Hand Path, which laid the foundations for all Swedish death metal. Even with the new name, the guys under Petrov’s leadership stay within the guidelines the »original« Entombed set down with Left Hand Path, Clandestine and Wolverine Blues. Nothing new on the Eastern Front. But the mid-tempo stomping that Back to the Front is full of at times conjures up even the best moments of Entombed’s death ‘n’ roll era. The guitars are crushing, their groove lumbers like a sledgehammer and roars like a circular saw, and though the riffs stay simple, they’re varied and dynamic. Staccato riffing is broken up by melodic interludes, where Petrov shines with his unmistakable, furious vocals, which still sound like he’s spent his whole life quenching his thirst with gasoline while chain-smoking.
The tempo of the album is coherent and constant, but that’s also its biggest problem, because with their palpable, ever-present lean toward mid-pace, the songs quickly start to repeat themselves and drag. Despite an album sound that pounds and bludgeons without mercy, the death rock of Back to the Front lacks faster rhythms and more thought-out dynamics. This time the guys stay firmly anchored in their punk/d-beat groove, and they only swap the bulldozer for faster rolling on tank treads in, for example, Vulture and the Traitor and especially in the two-and-a-half-minute blast The Underminer.
Old-school fans probably won’t be too thrilled if they were expecting Left Hand Path 2, but expecting something like that from Petrov and the guys would honestly be unfair. After seven years of studio silence, Back to the Front is more than a solid record, held back only by a lack of more varied songs that would stick in your memory long after the album ends. Still, Back to the Front navigates quite successfully between the band’s death metal and death ‘n’ roll eras, and Entombed still know how to deliver some not-overly-polished filth that will satisfy mostly fans of the Uprising/Morning Star/Inferno era. Even better, Entombed A.D. prove they’re not down for the count and are still musically relevant. Live even more than in the studio, as the recent Ljubljana show confirmed!
Lineup
L.G. Petrov – vocals
Victor Brandt – bass
Nico Elgstrand – guitar
Olle Dahlstedt
Production
Roberto Laghi
Tracklist
1. Kill To Live
2. Bedlam Attack
3. Pandemic Rage
4. Second To None
5. Bait And Bleed
6. Waiting For Death
7. Eternal Woe
8. Digitus Medius
9. Vulture And Traitor
10. The Underminer
11. Soldier of No Fortune
