Entrails, Resurrected from the Grave

Having missed out on Entrails earlier works, this latest reissue through Metal Blade Records is a treat. Resurrected from the Grave combines two early demos — Reborn and Human Decay — that were original personally released by the band on CD-Rs, then re-recorded in 2009 (15 years after they were originally unleashed) and now finally released five years later. All but a handful of the songs here already appear on the band’s first two full-lengths, but it’s still pretty damned cool to hear a more raw form, as well as those experiments (goth chick singing!?) that didn’t become part of the group’s overall sound.

There’s definitely some serious Entombed aping here, but considering that these songs spawned from ideas formulated in the 1990’s that’s to be expected. Mastermind Jimmy Lindquist handles all of the instrumentation (including some not-so-stellar sounding drum programming) here while Jocke Svensson unleashes some guttural mayhem for the vocals. With Reborn being the older of the two demos, it’s cuddled up against Entombed/Dismember the most, but does show a good bit of originality, as well. “The Morgue” is viciously delivered while “Voices” is as catchy as fucking ever. And combination of the chugging “Stormy Death” and more progressive-leaning “Midnight Death” make for one hell of a one-two punch.

The great thing about the first half of this re-issue is that much of what was written/recorded was done at the same time as many of those now considered luminaries in the Swedish death metal genre. One has to wonder what would have happened to these guys has they not split up at the time.

Human Decay carries a bit more originality to it than it’s partner in crime here. Anchored by buzzing, nasty riffage the six songs on this release are a bit more mid-tempo (and even slower), but sound as though they were recorded in a goddamn coffin, eight feet deep. “Blood Red” is a thick, burly and crawling monster of a song and “Evil Terror” is non-stop right from the get-go. “Total Death” carries a bit of a Floridian sound as it churns along steadily with a deathly catchy chorus.

In the end, the only thing that needs to be said about Resurrected from the Grave is that this is some vital shit that needs to be in your collection. I don’t personally hold much weight in demos as I see them as a bands opportunity to find and shop itself around to labels, but this is one set of early material that I drooled over upon getting my grubby hands on it. Then again, I grew up on this early shit so it reminds me a great deal of my early death metal days — Entombed, Dismember, Grave, Unleashed… Perhaps there could have been an Entrails in that list at one point.