I think I’ve said this before in these pages but just to reiterate: live albums can be hit or miss. On the one hand you have a record that perfectly catches the vibe of seeing your favorite band on stage with that right amount of audience participation and sound whereas on the other hand, there’s the albums that capture none of that with a tinny sound that doesn’t do the band justice at all. And unfortunately the latter is what the newly resurrected Entombed find themselves with when it comes to Clandestine Live.
But I digress.
It should be a glorious thing that we live in a world where there are two incarnations of Entombed out there making tunes. You have OG vocalist LG Petrov on one side with Entombed A.D. (And his more Death Metal-centric Firespawn project) and on the other you have Alex Hellid, Nicke Andersson, and Uffe Cederlund sporting the original moniker.
Entombed A.D. vocalist LG Petrov claims that the reason for the name change on his part and forging ahead is the slow process of making new music (Read about some of that drama here) so when Alex Hellid, Nicke Andersson, and Uffe Cederlund reunited under the original name, what did they do first? Put out a live album playing through a 28 year old album (This recording was actually taken from a 2016 performance which marked 25 years). Okay.
And it doesn’t sound good. Sure, it’s a soundboard quality recording but there’s no excitement of the crowd included or energy conveyed. It just is. And you know what you’re getting in terms of tracks. From “Strange Aeons” and “Crawl” to “Sinners Bleed” and “Left Hand Path”, all your Clandestine favorites are here sung by Petrov’s replacement (Robert Andersson) who is nothing compared to the gravelly throated original Entombed vocalist. Frankly, you’re better off listening to the original album (And yes, I know LG is not on the original recorded version) and then clap and scream after each track to give it a live feel.
Call me when “Entombed” has some actual new tunes to share and until then, I’ll be in LG’s corner enjoying the hell out of A.D. and Firespawn who are dropping their third full-length this June (Seriously, in the time it’s taken to put out this live album, Petrov has released two A.D. full-lengths and just about three full-lengths from Firespawn).
Clandestine Live will be unearthed on May 17th through Sound Pollutions Media. You can pre-order your very own copy in a variety of formats here. For more on Entombed, head here.