UMUR "Bowels Of Earth" is the 3rd full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Entombed A.D.. The album was released through Century Media Records in August 2019. It´s the successor to "Dead Dawn" from 2016 and features one lineup change since the predecessor as second guitarist Guilherme Miranda has been added to the lineup, making Entombed A.D. a five-piece on "Bowels Of Earth".

Stylistically the material on "Bowels Of Earth" is a continuation of the old school Swedish death metal style of the two predecessors. It´s slightly darker and features less death´n´roll elements (although they are still there. An example is the guitar solo section on "Elimination"), but it´s nuances and ultimately "Bowels Of Earth" sounds unmistakably like Entombed A.D.. The regular version of the album features 9 originals and a cover of "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive" by country musician Hank Williams, while the limited edition of the album features an additional cover track in "Back at the Funny Farm" by Motörhead.

The musicianship is strong and lead vocalist L-G Petrov still delivers a distinct sounding growling attack, although his vocal style has changed a bit over the years. He is slightly more monotone these days, but his vocals are still decent. The material on the album are generally well written and mostly fairly memorable, but some tracks a bit unremarkable. Highlights to my ears are the album opener "Torment Remains", the title track, "Fit for a King", and "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive". The latter is actually the most standout track on the album, and that´s of course a bit worrying, when a cover track is the most interesting song on an album, but the other tracks are of a good quality too.

"Bowels Of Earth" features a raw and powerful sound production, so it´s a quality release on most parameters. The songwriting could have been a little more memorable and there are some moments on the album which are maybe a bit dull or at least sounds much like something we´ve heard before (and better) from the band. Mostly though "Bowels Of Earth" is another good quality death metal release by Entombed A.D. and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.

Nightfly It can’t be easy being Entombed A.D. Seemingly destined to always be in the shadow of the band that spawned them, Entombed of course, who were responsible for ground-breaking death metal albums like Left Hand Path and Clandestine. A band who along with others like Dismember established the Stockholm sound and influenced god knows how many imitators with that buzzsaw guitar sound. Entombed A.D. nevertheless have much to offer themselves.

Bowels Of Earth is the bands third release and I’d say it’s the best of the three. You’re not going to find any great leaps in terms of style here but if you have a penchant for straight forward no nonsense death ‘n’ roll then this could be for you. Buzzsaw guitar sound intact the band romps through ten tracks with little variation but plenty of strong riffs and hooks. The album starts off strong with first three tracks – Torment remains, Elimination and Hell Is My Home hitting all the right spots with the later perhaps the pick of the bunch. The rest though is not lacking in quality songs with the band playing with plenty of enthusiasm with only the occasional slight dip in quality but it’s barely noticeable when they do with most of the songs only being around the three minute mark. An unexpected cover of the Hank Williams song I’ll Never Get out Of This World Alive works surprisingly well with Entombed A.D. making it their own. Whilst most of the material runs along at a fair pace they throw in a few slower tempos for parts of some of the songs for variation, though final song To Eternal Night really slows things down and at 5:43 is the longest track here. It’s also a bit of a weak ending to an otherwise great album, dragging somewhat and outstaying it’s welcome.

While I’ve heard a lot of better death metal this year Bowels Of Earth is still a welcome addition and one I’ll be playing pretty regularly over the coming months. Well worth checking out if you’ve ever liked this band and its parent outfit.