1993 Earache/Columbia/Sony Music

Man, how this disc didn’t get more mainstream notoriety (given the success of bands like Sepultura) is beyond me.  I remember this one coming out roughly around the same time as Sepultura’s ground breaking “Roots” and believing it to be an equally important (if not superior) release.

I was doing a new music show on WTGE-FM 100.7 The Tiger back in 1993 when this came in the mail.  I was already stoked after hearing the “Hollowman” EP and I turned this one up so loud in the production room that I blew one of the speakers.

This is the album where Entombed’s buzz-saw guitar fueled ‘death n roll’ sound first came to fruition, and to this day there is no one who sounds like them.   At their best, Entombed rivals the mighty Slayer for pure electricity and aggression, for this is truly the sound of chaos…barely harnessed chaos.

L G Petrov is a vocalist like no other, his voice evolving from a cookie cutter death growl to the most melodically abrasive and hell-raising voice on earth.  Sample the pounding mercilessness of “Rotten Soil,” the venom of the title track, the machine-like coldness of “Hollowman” or full-on fury of opening track “Eyemaster” for highlights of this band’s power no matter what the velocity of the song.

There’s this strange classic rock feel that oozes through Entombed’s brutal sound, most notably on this disc and its long-delayed follow up “To Ride, Shoot Straight And Speak The Truth.”   Strange because lurking underneath the sonic brutality there’s a certain familiarity that makes ‘Wolverine Blues’ a frighteningly easy album to warm up to.

Rating:  5 out of 5

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