Serpent Saints (The Ten Amendments)

Honestly, I never liked the “new” Entombed musical direction after the two great albums Left Hand Path and Clandestine. The groove elements were the viruses that destroyed their violence and death metal to fill the sound with dull and too weak elements. The violence of the classic death metal assault was erased to privilege a more personal but quite unconvincing direction. The albums before were always on the death ‘n’ roll style and also the last one doesn’t differ.

The impact is filtrated through heavy dosages of modernism and groove. The guitars sound is dry out and not Swedish anymore while the production is voluntary essential and raw. The drums sound is a bit weak but somehow more bound to this kind of sound. So we begin with a more modern track like “Serpent Saints” where the groove influences take dominion to continue with the more direct and simple “Master Of Death”. This last one shows some good up tempo parts and screamed vocals.

Unfortunately, the various modern guitars lines ruin a bit songs that could have been far better with a higher dosage of brutality. The vocals by Petrov are a bit a scratchy in their growlish tonality and the time passes for anyone because they are not like in the past, with that sick touch. Anyway, I believe that they fit better for the new direction by the band. Surely a song like “Thy Kingdom Koma” must be erased from the Entombed’s production because it’s terrible. It’s like listening to Soulfly that want to play more death metal.

On this album we can also find some keyboards parts and I believe that Entombed tried them to fill the sound with gloom elements. A sound that is not exceptional and I’m talking about “Warfare, Plague, Famine, Death” for example. The tempo is boring in a song like “In The Blood” and it’s similar to a tired Godzilla trying to crawl on a field. Going on this album is really annoying and boring. The modern elements grow and the speed goes down. The band seems very tired and I believe they are.

Every album by this band is an occasion to reflect on that fact if it’s good to produce albums when you are physically and mentally empty. I think that it’s better to stop for awhile to reflect on what to do and concentrate the energy and the ideas in other projects, also outside the musical field.