Entombed - Monkey Puss (Live in London)
Review: The silly title might not appeal to metalheads, which is unfortunate, as this album is a pristine - as much as live performances by death metal bands can be unblemished and clear - recording of much of the back catalogue that made this band legendary. Their rockish death metal emerged from the primitive pugilism of European thunderous death, and picked up from its Swedish heritage a tendency to use melody and finely textured tremolo picking with the trademark blistering electric double distortion for which Nordic death metal is infamous. Songs from the first two albums, the aggressive "Left Hand Path" and the more rock-rhythmic "Clandestine," explode in sound that while thinner than studio captures the anarchic harmony of musicians collaborating on the fly in a live setting. Although the cover art, name and cheesy marketing of this CD reflect the grunge-metal-bluesrock hybrid that Entombed later became, in that bid for greater audience losing their devoted fans, the contents grasp what this band was when they contributed to the experience of metal in the early 1990s.
