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DARK TRANQUILLITY – Not Nothing (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)

Century Media Records

Entombed: Morning Star (2001)

I never got to mark the sad passing of longtime Entombed (and Entombed A.D.) frontman Lars-Göran Petrov two years ago, when the likable and quasi-legendary vocalist was brought down by an incurable form of bile duct cancer, so this blog is dedicated to his memory.

By the time they delivered their seventh studio LP, Morning Star, Swedish death metal giants Entombed were enjoying a rather remarkable and quite unexpected career renaissance, with this qualifying as the second chapter in an excellent trilogy reviving the band’s patented brand of rot ‘n’ roll.

And it goes without saying that Petrov’s unmistakable howl was as crucial to this signature sound as the filthy, carnivorous guitars played by founding Entombed members Uffe Cederlund and Alex Hellid, plus those glorious, ‘wet cardboard box’ drums made famous by the departed Nicke Andersson on Wolverine Blues and accurately cloned here by Peter Stjärnvind. (*)

If anything, Morning Star scales back the death ‘n’ roll dominance of the previous year’s fantastic Uprising just a smidge to make room for a few more old-school S.D.M. hallmarks, but none of this would have mattered if the songs themselves hadn’t been absolute dynamite!

None more so than album’s devastating opening cut, “Chief Rebel Angel” (largely inspired, along with the lyrically hilarious “When it Hits Home,” by the Keanu Reeves/Charlize Theron/Al Pacino movie The Devil’s Advocate), where Petrov fairly collapses a lung with his incensed bellowing:

“Many my name; But one and the same; Chaos being and the everlasting flame.

Phosphorous! Lucifer! Stand up in praise of the morning star!

Phosphorous! Lucifer! Say it! Chief Rebel Angel!”

But there are so many memorable moments here, such as the haunting arpeggios in “Bringer of Light,” the fretboard strangler of a riff on “Ensemble of the Restless,” the sinister, Slayer-worshipping melodies of “City of Ghosts,” the inexorable velocity and violence committed by “About to Die,” and L-G’s desperate roar on “Fractures.”

Oh, and the deep Entombed family roots see onetime vocalist Orvar Säfström -- who only briefly stood in for Petrov for 1991’s Crawl EP -- contributing the lyrics for another standout, “I for an Eye,” which leaves barely a handful of tracks for the ‘forgettable’ category.

Alas, Entombed’s hot streak would unfortunately not extend much further, as the subsequent Inferno, while still a strong outing, couldn’t match this one’s sheer quality, and ‘07’s Serpent Saints (The Ten Amendments) was a pretty massive fail.

By the time L-G assembled Entombed A.D., the line between legitimate brand extension and half-arsed tribute band had grown too tenuous for my liking, and I decided to ‘retire’ from active fandom, just as most of Entombed’s founding members had already retired from the group.

Still, there aren’t many death metal bands -- from Sweden or anywhere else -- who can compete with Entombed’s body of work, which, in my opinion, includes five essential LPs in Left hand Path, Clandestine, Wolverine Blues, Inferno, and, of course, Morning Star.

* Former Grave man Jörgen Sandström played bass.

More Entombed: Left Hand Path, Clandestine, Wolverine Blues, DCLXVI: To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth, Uprising.