Reviewed - 05/15/05
Nihilist
[Candlelight/Threeman Records]
While Entombed may not have been the first Death Metal band I ever got into (I leave that honor to Death, Repulsion and Morbid Angel), they were among the first Swedish Death Metal acts that caught my ear. Hell, they were one of, if not THE first Death Metal acts from Sweden and are widely considered along with Entombed to have invented the Swedish Death Metal sound. I still listen to Entombed's first album "Left Hand Path" on a regular basis to this day as there is nothing out there that has the sound this album has. Those totally oppressive, grinding, downtuned and overly distorted guitars are something I can't get enough of. They are damn near hypnotizing! This album is easily in my top five favorite Death Metal albums of all time. They followed "Left Hand Path" up with a decent sophomore effort called "Clandestine", but after that in my opinion the band went downhill fast and never released another album I felt compelled to go out and buy. I never give what the guys in the band are up to these days a second thought anymore, but the promo I was given to review made me take immediate notice. What they have recently released is something that will make old fans of the band happy as shit. It is not a new Entombed album that harkens back to their glory days, nor is it even an Entombed at all! It's a compilation C.D. full of demo material from their pre-Entombed band Nihilist. To me this material absolutely rules, but is it worth buying for you? Let me dig into the album a bit more and see if I can help you decide one way or another.
All fourteen tracks of this album are made up of demo material taken from four Nihilist demo cassettes entitled "Premature Autopsy", "Only Shreds Remain", "Drowned" and "The Drowned Sessions". Plus, the last three tracks of the album are taken from an Entombed demo called "But Life Goes On". All of the songs are in chronological order from the oldest tracks to the newest and it's cool to see the band's progression as they age and go through a few lineup changes. What struck me most was the tracks off the first demo "Premature Autopsy" as the music and especially the vocals have a Hard-core slant to them! Come to find out from the bio of the band sent with the promo, a member or two of Entombed were actually in a Hard-core band called Brainwarp before they formed Nihilist. By the second demo though you hear a more pronounced Entombed sound that everyone came to know and love, and with each successive demo the music sounds a bit more and more like "Left Hand Path". None of the music on these demos is played as well as the music on "Left Hand Path", but that's easy to understand considering that it's demo material.
L.G. Petrov's vocals vary a bit from demo to demo, especially on that first demo where I said there's quite a bit of Hard-core influence. Petrov I thought always had a unique vocal style and unique voice all around for Death Metal, and it's neat to see him get down and guttural at such a young age (more on this later in the review) on these demos. The lyrics are sung and written in English and deal with... well, if you've heard "Left Hand Path" and "Clandestine" and read the lyrics there, then you've already read these lyrics as well dealing with Death, Horror and Gore.
The production is the one big downfall of "Nihilist". Some may like the fact that the music is taken right from demo tapes and the original sound is left intact, but some remastering would have been nice. Hell, some of the music drops right out in a few spots because of a faulty tape or something they recorded this off from. The production does get better and better the further you get into the album just because the farther you get into the album, the newer the recordings are. Still, even the Entombed demo doesn't sound very good.
The packaging and layout is rather bland and the cover art is done in a simple black and white scheme, and that's about it. The promo didn't come with any lyrics or any additional artwork or anything else I can comment on. What it did have though is a fairly insightful band biography written up by Ula Gehret. I found out some shit I didn't know before reading this thing like that Johnny Hedlund used to play bass in Nihilist before he left to play in Unleashed. Also, the average age of Nihilist when they recorded their first demo was fifteen! Now you see why I thought Petrov's vocals were excellent for his age. Not only that, I found out that when Entombed recorded "Left Hand Path" all of the band members parents had to sign the legal documents because none of them were eighteen yet. I thought they were into their twenty's when they recorded that album! I now have even more respect for that album seeing as though now I know that such a great masterpiece was created by kids.
As much as I like the material on this album, I can't recommend it to everyone. People that have never heard the band before would be better off getting "Left Hand Path" and "Clandestine" as their first introduction to the band. These two records have the same songs on them and are a lot better sounding to boot. Older fans of Entombed will definitely want to check this out though. This material has been hard to find up to this point so it helps in the collection department, and with the direction Entombed has taken over recent years, "Nihilist" is about the only good "new" album they'll probably ever come out with again.
[Candlelight/Threeman Records]
While Entombed may not have been the first Death Metal band I ever got into (I leave that honor to Death, Repulsion and Morbid Angel), they were among the first Swedish Death Metal acts that caught my ear. Hell, they were one of, if not THE first Death Metal acts from Sweden and are widely considered along with Entombed to have invented the Swedish Death Metal sound. I still listen to Entombed's first album "Left Hand Path" on a regular basis to this day as there is nothing out there that has the sound this album has. Those totally oppressive, grinding, downtuned and overly distorted guitars are something I can't get enough of. They are damn near hypnotizing! This album is easily in my top five favorite Death Metal albums of all time. They followed "Left Hand Path" up with a decent sophomore effort called "Clandestine", but after that in my opinion the band went downhill fast and never released another album I felt compelled to go out and buy. I never give what the guys in the band are up to these days a second thought anymore, but the promo I was given to review made me take immediate notice. What they have recently released is something that will make old fans of the band happy as shit. It is not a new Entombed album that harkens back to their glory days, nor is it even an Entombed at all! It's a compilation C.D. full of demo material from their pre-Entombed band Nihilist. To me this material absolutely rules, but is it worth buying for you? Let me dig into the album a bit more and see if I can help you decide one way or another.
All fourteen tracks of this album are made up of demo material taken from four Nihilist demo cassettes entitled "Premature Autopsy", "Only Shreds Remain", "Drowned" and "The Drowned Sessions". Plus, the last three tracks of the album are taken from an Entombed demo called "But Life Goes On". All of the songs are in chronological order from the oldest tracks to the newest and it's cool to see the band's progression as they age and go through a few lineup changes. What struck me most was the tracks off the first demo "Premature Autopsy" as the music and especially the vocals have a Hard-core slant to them! Come to find out from the bio of the band sent with the promo, a member or two of Entombed were actually in a Hard-core band called Brainwarp before they formed Nihilist. By the second demo though you hear a more pronounced Entombed sound that everyone came to know and love, and with each successive demo the music sounds a bit more and more like "Left Hand Path". None of the music on these demos is played as well as the music on "Left Hand Path", but that's easy to understand considering that it's demo material.
L.G. Petrov's vocals vary a bit from demo to demo, especially on that first demo where I said there's quite a bit of Hard-core influence. Petrov I thought always had a unique vocal style and unique voice all around for Death Metal, and it's neat to see him get down and guttural at such a young age (more on this later in the review) on these demos. The lyrics are sung and written in English and deal with... well, if you've heard "Left Hand Path" and "Clandestine" and read the lyrics there, then you've already read these lyrics as well dealing with Death, Horror and Gore.
The production is the one big downfall of "Nihilist". Some may like the fact that the music is taken right from demo tapes and the original sound is left intact, but some remastering would have been nice. Hell, some of the music drops right out in a few spots because of a faulty tape or something they recorded this off from. The production does get better and better the further you get into the album just because the farther you get into the album, the newer the recordings are. Still, even the Entombed demo doesn't sound very good.
The packaging and layout is rather bland and the cover art is done in a simple black and white scheme, and that's about it. The promo didn't come with any lyrics or any additional artwork or anything else I can comment on. What it did have though is a fairly insightful band biography written up by Ula Gehret. I found out some shit I didn't know before reading this thing like that Johnny Hedlund used to play bass in Nihilist before he left to play in Unleashed. Also, the average age of Nihilist when they recorded their first demo was fifteen! Now you see why I thought Petrov's vocals were excellent for his age. Not only that, I found out that when Entombed recorded "Left Hand Path" all of the band members parents had to sign the legal documents because none of them were eighteen yet. I thought they were into their twenty's when they recorded that album! I now have even more respect for that album seeing as though now I know that such a great masterpiece was created by kids.
As much as I like the material on this album, I can't recommend it to everyone. People that have never heard the band before would be better off getting "Left Hand Path" and "Clandestine" as their first introduction to the band. These two records have the same songs on them and are a lot better sounding to boot. Older fans of Entombed will definitely want to check this out though. This material has been hard to find up to this point so it helps in the collection department, and with the direction Entombed has taken over recent years, "Nihilist" is about the only good "new" album they'll probably ever come out with again.
 |
|
Tracklist:
|
|
| Rating: 8/10 | |
| Release Date: 2005 | |
| Length: 48:07 | |
| Review By: Britton Dicks | |
| Total Reviews: (1) | |
| Bands Website: Go Here | |
 |