Review Summary: One lone star in all of space
Entombed since the beginning of their release,
Left Hand Path, all the way through
Wolverine Blues, have been carrying away quite smoothly in the field of death metal. At the time of
Wolverine Blues , Entombed had started to take off on a new style of death n’ roll, a combination of hard rock and death metal. While this style presented a milestone in the career for Entombed, it is very apparent to see that the band wasn’t even beginning to compare to their old school death metal days. With the release of
Morning Star, Entombed can be seen making a much needed walk down memory lane, and while it doesn’t completely portray their old days, the cross contamination of death n’ roll, and old school death metal really makes for a fun listen, but severely lacks in the good form of creativity the band became known for back in the day.
Morning Star carries off in ways far different than usual return to roots productions, for the most part; an ideal solution to the band’s slip into obscurity, and an explosion of ideas that just don’t fit together as well as it did in their heads. Of all people in this album, lead vocalist Petrov should’ve been the first to see where the band was making the slip. Rather, he seeps up all the creativity the band does manage to form, and overshadows it all with his reigning death n’ roll voice, going completely against the ideal terms of this album.
The real appraisal goes to guitarist Alex Hellid, who is clearly doing his best to perform to his best potential. In songs like
Fractures, some very inspirational riffs can be seen pouring out of his strings, and a bass that adds mood to boot. Definitely coming out on the right side of the album, and the sphere of influence poured into this album, Hellid and bassist Jörgen Sandström make this album to be as great as it is. Building off on the climax presented by Petrov in
City of Ghosts, more short solos make their way into the small tracks of this album. When it comes to beat, climax, sound, or D) all of the above, drummer Peter Stjarnvid keeps his pace well, but much like the vocalist, fails to cooperate with the intention of making this a return to roots album. His drumming style comes off as more along the lines of a death thrash group, and is far more technical than it used to be. Raw and simplistic production simply didn’t agree with him in
Morning Star. don’t get me wrong, he is a phenomenal drummer, but for all intents and purposes of this album, there just isn’t much he can offer.
To put it simply,
Morning Star is an album that gave way to little of the overall promise made by Entombed to be returning to their old style, which is considerably better than the neo-Entombed style that is still pushing the boundaries to this very day. I just feel rather conflicted that the band had made the decision to return to their better days, but still manage to fall short of the finish line. Perhaps I’m being a bit too harsh on the album, simply for not being what is was promised to be, because it is a good album, a great example of the band’s talent in the field they chose, but if a band decides to advertise the return of an old sound, than you can’t blame the audience for not reacting well when they get it. Overall, I decided to let a huge chunk of this slide, because like I said, this is a decent album, and doesn’t deserve to be belittled by society, but there is so much missing to it that it just can’t get up there with the rest of the band’s good performances.
