Reviewed - 03/10/05

Unreal Estate
[Threeman/Candlelight]

Oh Entombed, how I used to love thee! Remember back in the day when we used to spend a lot of time together? Just you and I, one on one alone with our morbid and horrific thoughts? What has happened to you? You've... changed. Change is sometimes good, but it can also be bad. I made up my mind not to associate myself with you anymore over ten years ago, but you came back and asked me to give you one more shot. I tried, I really did. But it is definitely over between us. We have nothing in common anymore (haven't in years really) so I must bid you a fond farewell. We'll always have "Left Hand Path" though.

Oh man, what a heaping load of steaming shit this album is! Everyone knows Entombed's backstory, so there's no need to go into that again. You already know it all. They were one of the founders of the Swedish death metal movement and "Left Hand Path" is considered one of the best death metal albums of all time, and blah, blah fucking BLAH! They released this debut album of theirs which I and many others friggin' loved. To this day "Left Hand Path is one of my favorite albums ever because while being death metal, this album offered a nice alternative to the American death metal sound. Then along came "Clandestine" which was a bit different, yet I still liked it a lot. Then came "Wolverine Blues" and that's when I quit caring about Entombed at all. I just couldn't care about how they were watering their sound down at all. It reeked of selling out to me and if I thought that was bad, their later albums would prove to be even more horrible than "Wolverine Blues". Ugh. So, I get this new album "Unreal Estate" in to review and immediately scoffed at it. But when I read the promo info, it said that this was a live album which was recorded at the Stockholm Royal Opera Hall. So I thought "Hey, this may be good". I hate it when I'm wrong.

What this album is is a live recording made in 2002... Wait, let's stop right there. 2002? And this is just coming out now three years after the fact? Okay, so anyway... This album consists of reworked songs of some of their newer material played in front of a group of people that are not necessarily metal fans. There's not much screaming and yelling by the fans here. Nope, there's clapping. Clapping for Entombed. Thing is, I thought this album would have the band accompanied by an orchestra or something since it was in an opera house. Nah, none of that here! Just a few piano and keyboard parts to link some songs to the next one. You want to know what the biggest unique aspect of this album is? Ballerinas. Through the entirety of this show, professional ballerinas apparently put on some choreographed ballet performance that was centered around the music. But, we can't see that because this is a C.D. of course. My question is: "Why wasn't this released as a DVD?". I think when you miss the ballet part of what went on that night, you're missing half the experience. The music just plain sucks. I don't like this new "Death 'N' Roll" sound Entombed has adopted over the years, and rearranging these awful songs doesn't help them one bit. I will say one positive thing - while I do not like this music at all, it is very well played for apparently not having any overdubs.

The lyrics are (of course) written and sung in English. I have no idea what the lyrics are about because quite honestly all of these songs are from newer albums, so I could care less. The vocalist now has a voice that would make him at home on any band you see on Headbanger's Ball. Hell, Entombed would now fit perfectly on Roadrunner Records new roster of crap bands.

The production is decent enough. But as always, I hate to go on about how the production is good when the music is so bad. That said, for some reason the audience applause seems to come mostly out of the left channel. Were all of the audience members seated on the left side of the auditorium or something? Next!

The packaging I cannot comment on at all. Nothing was provided in terms of packaging at all. All I got was the C.D. itself and a bio sheet. How lame. Labels should know that not all reviewers just comment on the music contained on the C.D.. I try and comment on the entire package which includes album cover art, lyrical content, liner notes, other art contained inside the booklet, etc. I never subtract rating points for an albums packaging and only give ratings based on the music, but I still like to comment on it and some readers like to know what they are getting before they buy an album. I did see the cover art when I looked for it online, and it's fairly unremarkable showing a scene from I believe the opera house this was recorded in, or something similar to that. What struck me most was the new logo. There's something just not right with seeing the Entombed logo done in an elegant fashion.

Dear Entombed, I understand why you have become like you are. You saw that if you watered your sound down a little bit, then a little bit more, you could gain more fans and thusly maybe make a few more bucks for yourselves. You aren't the first to do it as Metallica did it long before you did. I understand, but I don't support it. Money is nice, but not when you sell yourself out and become something you never wanted to be when you started. A quote from Martin Walkyier comes to mind here: "Integrity and honesty are words that you don't understand. But you're the best, it says so in the Penny Dreadful in your hand. Good-bye guys, it's been nice knowing you...