In 1990, death metal was only at its infancy. The genre had seen so far releases from bands principally out of Florida, with little exceptions from Brazil, Holland and a couple from England as well. Without a warning came an album from a frozen country in northern Europe called Sweden. An album that would set the standard for many records to come. This album was Entombed’s Left Hand Path produced at Sunlight Studio by Tomas Skogsberg. From that day, two different worlds would battle for death metal supremacy. On one side the Floridian death metal movement, with producer Scott Burns at Morrissound Recording Studios and on the other side, the Swedish school, with producer Tomas Skogsberg at Sunlight Studios.

Left Hand Path is not my favorite Entombed album, but rather Clandestine. Actually, to be honest, after Left Hand Path and Clandestine, the band produced rather non-interesting music for me since they have lost their death metal edge. Although I own somewhere in my house, Wolverine Blues and To Ride Shoot Straight And Speak The Truth, I gave up after their second album. And from what I have heard of them lately, I will definitely not put money down for any of their latest releases.

Their second offering Clandestine is one of my all time favorite death metal albums and really deserves an almost maximum quotation. First of all, this album features the vocal performance of Nicke Andersson (and not Johnny Dordevic as mentioned in the booklet) after the resignation of Lars-Göran Petrov (who will return home before the recording of their third album). I always thought that Nicke’s vocals range fit the band better than Lars-Göran’s, although many people won’t agree with my point of view. Besides, the guy also handled the mesmerizing drumming on this album and is behind all the songwriting. The brutal but ingenious guitar work performed by Alex Hellid and Ulf Cederlund contains that typical Swedish groove of the early nineties.

Clandestine is one of the few albums that neither time nor recent production can change for the worse. This brilliant album features indeed a clever production, excellent musicianship and tremendous songwriting which display an awesome catchy death metal band way ahead of its own time. Indeed, this album, coupled with their first effort, have spawned multitudes of clones inside the Swedish death metal scene since bands such as Dismember, Unleashed, Grave, Desultory to name but a few started to rip off their sound.

Sometimes you want your favorite band to move ahead, not to stagnate, but I wish Entombed had released tons of records in this vein and not the crap’n roll they later released. What Man Has Created, Man Can Destroy. Bring To Light That Day Of Joy !