Review by SilentScream213 for Entombed - Left Hand Path (1990)

Good god. Death Metal was born in the late 80’s, but most of that stuff isn’t a huge leap away from extreme Thrash and Black metal of the same decade. Even the albums that had broken from carrying clear Thrash influence still sound like a genre in development. This beast sounds like it could have been released yesterday.

Entombed took one step back and two forward. They slowed down a bit, and instead of trying to outdo their peers with technical prowess or blistering intensity, dug themselves a grave and adopted a truly sepulchral sound. Insanely downtuned guitars with a sludgy buzz sound like they’re cutting through a murky swamp, while the rhythm section lays tight and varying beats that pound at a steady mid-tempo (by extreme metal standards). The vocals are the deepest growls laid to record by 1990, and there is a very cold, grave atmosphere that runs somewhat contrary to the genre’s roots in hellfire. The blue cover could play into this as much as the band’s icy homeland – but this is unmistakably the closest to true, cold death that Death Metal had ever gotten at the time