kendoji
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- May 12, 2006
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yes not including at least one of those makes the list utterly futile. both are far beyond anything else in that list ffs
oh and dark tranquility are awful btw
The Best of Swedish Death Metal
- Thread starter The Black Prince
- Start date
yes not including at least one of those makes the list utterly futile. both are far beyond anything else in that list ffs
oh and dark tranquility are awful btw
Clandestine and Wolverine Blues are the top Entombed albums imo, even though the 2nd one isn't exactly Death Metal. Classic albums.
The influence of Entombed (or, more properly, the influence of Nihilist - Left Hand Path came out far to late to hold the evolutionary importance often ascribed to it) is undeniable. The problem is that the actual recorded material is much more important as a historical than as a creative artifact. Left Hand Path and Clandestine are both fairly tame releases compared to what contemporaries were doing. They're primitive (in the unfinished sense) and boring. They lack violent aggression of Grave, the melodic sophistication of Necrophobic, God Macabre or Dismember, or the visionary scope of At the Gates and Therion. Both records suffer badly from an excessive influence from the D-beat scene, and they play internally more like hardcore than death metal. They're inferior even to bands plying similar territory: Sorcery's bloodchilling tales is a much better take on the basic style than Entombed ever managed.
Blind Guardian
Member
^ I dont agree at all about Clandestine since i hold it as one of the most uniqe,deep and dynamic Swedish dm albums. Instead i would say the same thing about Ancient God Of Evil.
Clandestine sounds like Foghat trying to re-record Like an Everflowing Stream. BOOOOORRRRRRRIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG!
lmao. pointless discussion and everyone's allowed their opinions. but basically you're an idiot and what you wrote above is exactly the wrong way round.
How so? It's blatantly obvious that Clandestine was largely Entombed's attempt to respond to the success of more melodically sophisticated releases from Carnage, Dismember, Unleashed, and God Macabre. Keep in mind that the material on the previous album was all 2-3 years old when it was actually released as Left Hand Path. Clandestine was an attempt to catch up to a scene that had already passed Entombed by.
kendoji
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I think that while Clandestine might not have been the most innovative dm album of the early 90s, that it did refine the genre considerably and displayed a quality of songwriting that went far beyond any of their peers. I know taste is subjective, but I find it very strange that anyone could think that 'Like an Ever Flowing Stream', for example, is more melodically sophisticated than Clandestine. Clandestine to me sounds like a group of talented young guys resolutely setting out to create the ultimate death metal record. And in many ways I think they succeeded. It's simply one of the most polished, sophisticated, brilliantly crafted extreme metal albums I've ever heard - and I've held this opinion since it was released so I don't think I can be convinced otherwise any time soon. Calling it "booooooooooooring" literally makes me doubt if we're talking about the same album.
Calling it "booooooooooooring" literally makes me doubt if we're talking about the same album.
Blind Guardian
Member
How many times have you listened to Clandestine? I would say it takes quite many spins before it settles.
How so? It's obviously a very simplified and stripped down take on what others had done previously. Certainly when laid next to albums already released by God Macabre, Carnage or Dismember, Clandestine pretty much has to be seen as lacking the same level of complexity by way of comparison. What's missing is the interplay of tone, texture and rhythmic variation that other bands in the scene were exploring. Instead, Entombed adopted a rhythmically one-dimensional rock-style compositional approach that is immediately obvious (and thus immediately accessible), but ultimately shallow and creatively dull.
One major problem is the over reliance on consonant intervals, both internally within lines of melody and within what harmonies exist on the record. It makes for a decidedly syrupy and saccharine feel that is, I'm sure, quite appealing to the mouth-breathing masses, but is a huge turnoff to the intelligent, informed listener.
But the bigger problem is the absolutely pathetic absence of any meaningful rhythmic variation. Virtually every riff of every song - without regard for absolute tempo or picking technique - utilizes a rhythmic pattern that puts the stressed beats (which is essentially what you hear and remember from any rhythmic pattern) in essentially the same places as in every other riff on every other song. Not only is this painfully formulaic and utterly uncreative, it's fucking boring, as the inevitable end result is that every song on the album sounds pretty much just like every other song on the album. It's not sophisticated. It's not polished. It's not good.
It is, however, good for business.
Blind Guardian
Member
I dont get it,Like An Ever Flowing Stream or Into The Grave is no way near as rythmically varied as Clandestine. In fact i think Clandestine is one of the swedish death metal sounds most variated albums. For example the drums on LAEFS and ITG are at 90% of the time played in the bassdrum-snare-bassdrum-snare way,while Clandestine has tons of tempo and rythm changes.
nizzon
f.k.a Qth
foodforthegods
Member
You're talking technique, which is irrelevant. I'm talking about how the phrases are actually put together, and where the stressed beats fall. I don't care what instruments you play it on or how much you speed it up or slow it down, if the stressed beats fall in the same places and in the same patterns, the actual rhythm hasn't changed in any meaningful way.
hibernal_dream
A Mind Forever Voyaging
Blind Guardian
Member
I didn´t mean techique per say,instead i meant that i think Clandestine is a very unpredictable album compared to for example Into The Grave,which i think is a good album but i think there´s more of a standard formula for how the songs are built up on ITG than Clandestine. But it can also depend on what you focus on. Many drummers(me included)like Clandestine,you can tell from how the songs are arranged that a drummer had a big part in writing them,there´s a lot of space left for drum phrasing and different feels. Maybe for a person who focuses more on the guitars it isn´t as good,although i love the album as a whole.
The arrangements on Clandestine are as standard as they get: verse/chorus/bridge. I can see your problem though: you're focusing on stuff that isn't really relevant. Drums keep time in death metal, that's their only function. Reading greater significance than that into them is a mistake, because they just don't matter in any appreciable way to constructing the MUSIC.
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