Today I found myself in another one of those funks, where the melancholy feelings just won’t subside. So, earlier tonight, I turned to music, Metal Music, to settle my thoughts, nerves and soul. I chose to listen to Entombed, Wolverine Blues. Released back in 1993, on Earache/Columbia Records, I find it startling that this album is around seventeen years old already. An excellent listening choice I made, Entombed was the Metal elixir and their album Wolverine Blues was the Metal prescription that served me right tonight. Entombed delivers their original style of Death Metal or Death N’ Roll with Wolverine Blues, it is as groove charged as it is sinister. With each listen, I can still hear some Thrash Metal being fused within Entombed’s songs on this album. In a Metal nutshell, Entombed covers some ground with Extreme Metal genres. This is one hell of a heavy and hard album, the righteous Metal remedy for curing my blues – let me tell you. Lyrically, there is no bashfulness to be found when it comes to topics and imagery on Wolverine Blues. The combination of the aggressive lyrics and Death N’ Roll charge makes this album sound like it belongs on top of the Metal heap in 2009.
Is Wolverine Blues the heaviest album I ever listened to? Honestly, no. However, this album is one of the most accessibly heavy albums I have listened to… where these songs are not entirely over the top yet they are light years from being mellow too. One song that is quite the enjoyable, extreme listen is Blood Song, with it’s vampire theme that explodes from it’s lyrics and haunting musical tension. My favorite song is Hollowman, it epitomizes the label – groove infested. The lyrics of Hollowman are intensified with messages of death, it reads like Death Metal poetry… if you will. How can an Extreme Metal loyalist like myself not adhere to songs that are titled Rotten Soil, Demon and Full Of Hell… this is the Metal escape I was looking for today, to be shaken back into shape, (courtesy of Entombed) and returned to my normal routine. Out Of Hand is another standout song for me on Wolverine Blues. L-G Petrov on lead vocals is viscous and brutal on Out Of Hand, his accentuating the lyrics only emboldens this songs message of societal distrust and disruption. L-G Petrov is tremendous vocally throughout Wolverine Blues, an unsung Metal legend who deserves any and all accolades that may come his way.
It is the cohesiveness of Entombed that makes Wolverine Blues sound so impeccably strong, all ten songs stand on their own. As this album comes to it’s close with Out Of Hand, I feel not just reinvigorated, I feel Metal empowered knowing that I can turn to Entombed during a personal funk void for a motivational punch in the arm. For seventeen Metal years this album has existed, it deserves to be heard and prescribed to the younger generation of Metal fans across the globe. I am hereby recommending this great album from Entombed to any fan of Metal that might be looking to get out of their own personal mind fog – let the escapism of Wolverine Blues serve you right like it did me today.
Entombed as they appeared on Wolverine Blues:
Nicke Andersson – drums, guitar
Lars-Goran Petrov (L-G Petrov) – lead vocals
U Cederlund (Uffe Cederlund) – guitar, tambourine
Lars Rosenberg – bass
Alx Hellid (Alex Hellid) – guitar
Wolverine Blues Track Listing:
1. Eyemaster
2. Rotten Soil
3. Wolverine Blues
4. Demon
5. Contempt
6. Full Of Hell
7. Blood Song
8. Hollowman
9. Heavens Die
10. Out Of Hand

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