It's time to write something about this soon-10-years-old bastard of a record. 'Wolverine Blues' is the third studio album from Swedish freaks, who are still going strong and nothing's stopping them. Sometimes a single word would be enough. You guess what it is with this one?

Classic. This is a pure, living classic! After two succesful albums of grave-cold death metal (in a good way) the band evolved. They dropped some of their heaviness, kept their dirtiness and gave a birth to another successor. Maybe some of the true death metal freaks began to fall already... This album, however, was my first experience with the band and as it happens with me, the first experience stays as the best with many bands. I remember, that at first its music sounded kinda cool, new, but it still didn't knock me off my feet. Not during the first few listenings, at least... It didn't need long to linger under my skin and reach my brain and bang! I was hooked!!! I don't know whether Entombed invented rocking death metal, but has anyone made it better than this, ever?!?! No, not even the band themselves. "The first record" -syndrome still haunts me, as you can see... The songs are varying enough: Some are more traditional death metal (e.g. 'Contempt'), some have great horror atmosphere (e.g. 'Demon') and some are straight rocking lunacy (e.g. 'Full of Hell').

Entombed sound truly individual with these ten songs, with familiar bits from earlier releases. Nicke Andersson's (The Hellacopters, ex-Daemon) beats especially. Riffing is more rock-influenced than previously and guitars screech a lot. This is also my favourite Entombed vocalwise. L-G Petrov simply layed excellent and appropriate styles for every song. Just check out 'Blood Song', about vampires of course. Lyrics are one of the best, ever. If I mentioned some loss of heaviness, this still ain't nothing light, mind you. Sound is all around dirty, lively and ugly, but very fitting and no any means crap. This has almost infinite amounts of groove, believe me. A few samples from Hellraiser movie and elsewhere fit seamlessly in. I just love this album, but I have done so many years already.

If you wait me to say something bad about this, you've read this far for nothing, hahaa!!! Or maybe I should add, that cover artwork has an ugly PhotoShop effect on it... This is a fine example of "how to make a record that'll sound fresh after 10 years of existence". Or nine, at this point as I'm hitting my keyboard, but I bet when this reaches the age of 10 years, I'll mean still the same! This rocks and punishes at the same time. Sharp as Wolverine's (X-Men, you know?!) claws.

Rating: 9 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Lane
09/18/2002 12:17