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.

UMUR "Dead Dawn" is the 2nd full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Entombed A.D.. The album was released through Century Media Records in February 2016. As most people probably know Entombed A.D. is a continuation of the legendary Swedish death metal act Entombed minus guitarist Alex Hellid, so while Entombed A.D. is still a relatively new act, the four guys in the band have played together for quite a few years...

...and the music on the album sounds unmistakably like "classic" Entombed (which was also the case on "Back to the Front (2014)" (the debut album by Entombed A.D.). The guitars have the right crusty sound, the drums play a punk/rock´n´roll influenced hard pounding energetic style, and lead vocalist L-G Petrov roars with his semi-growling distinct sounding voice. Entombed A.D. are wise enough to spice it up with the occasional more melodic and atmospheric moment, and as in the past there are quite a few hard rock elements in the sound too.

The quality of the material is generally high, although some tracks are more catchy than others. Highlights include powerful album opener "Midas in Reverse", the heavy "As the World Fell", the atmospheric "Hubris Fall", and "The Winner Has Lost" (which the band has also shot a video for). Especally the latter has the qualities to make it a future Entombed A.D. classic.

"Back to the Front (2014)" was a good solid effort by the band, although it wasn´t exactly earth shattering, and the same can be said about "Dead Dawn". The latter is just a notch more interesting and features a couple of really great tracks, which compared to the predecessor makes it the slightly better album overall. "Dead Dawn" is packed in a powerful sounding production, and the high level musical performances are another asset. 3.5 - 4 star (75%) rating is deserved.

UMUR "Back to the Front" is the debut full-length studio album by Swedish death metal act Entombed A.D.. The album was released through Century Media Records in August 2014. "Back to the Front" was originally meant to be the 10th full-length studio album by Entombed, but before recording the album guitarist Alex Hellid decided to quit, and the four remaining members (Lars Göran Petrov (Vocals), Nico Elgstrand (Guitars), Victor Brandt (Bass), Olle Dahlstedt (Drums)) recorded the album after they opted to continue with the band. Because of disagreements over the ownership of the Entombed name, they were not allowed to release "Back to the Front" under that monicker though, so they decided to release the album under the Entombed A.D. monicker instead.

...and listening to "Back to the Front" it makes perfect sense that they opted to continue with the Entombed name, even though they were forced to add the A.D. at the end of it, because this sounds unmistakably like Entombed. You won´t notice that there now isn´t a single person in the band that has appeared on every release the band have recorded. Besides Alex Hellid, the above mentioned lineup is actually also the exact same lineup who recorded the band´s previous studio album "Serpent Saints: The Ten Amendments (2007)", so these guys have played music together as Entombed for many years now.

Stylistically the music on the album pretty much continues the distinct sounding death metal style of it´s predecessor. So it´s a mixture of old school Swedish death metal, rock´n´roll, hard rock, and punk influences. There´s little new to be found here as this is more or less how the band have sounded since 1993, but they´ve increased the old school death metal elements a slight bit over the last couple of releases and the death´n´roll tag that has been applied to them is only partially true these days, and it´s probably mostly due to the organic, raw and filthy way the band play their death metal and how they chose to produce their albums. Entombed deliver both heavy and mid-paced tracks and occasionally speed up to a faster pace too. The music is not just raw death metal as the band also successfully incorporate acoustic guitars and piano to some tracks as atmosphere enhancers. As always it´s Lars Göran Petrov´s distinct sounding semi-growling vocals that defines the band´s sound, but the guitar tone and the riffing are also easily recognisable as the sound of Entombed.

The material on the 11 track, 51:08 minutes long "Back to the Front", features few surprises and as such it´s just another good quality release in a longer line of good quality releases by Entombed. I wouldn´t rate it among the band´s best output, but it´s a fairly strong release that shows that Entombed A.D. are more than worthy to carry on the legendary name (A.D. added or not). A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.