Earache
1990
Left Hand Path
About This Album
With their monumental debut album, Left Hand Path, Entombed crashed through the gates of the international death metal scene and foreshadowed the pivotal role that Scandinavia would soon play in the evolution of the then-burgeoning genre. These Swedes had earlier made ripples throughout the underground with their But Life Goes On demo (1989), as well as their prior demos as Nihilist, which had gotten them signed to Earache. Left Hand Path did more than make ripples upon its 1990 release, however -- it came crashing like a tidal wave. Beyond doubt it raised the bar for death metal, significantly challenging American trailblazers like Death, Obituary, and Morbid Angel. What Entombed did was take the extremity of Earache's stable of British grindcore bands (Napalm Death, Carcass, and Godflesh) and apply it to the elaborate songwriting structures of the aforementioned American death metal bands. It was the best of both worlds -- over the top extremity complemented by intricate songwriting -- and it wasn't more than a year or two later that everyone and their brother were following Entombed's lead (e.g., Carcass' Necroticism [1991], Napalm Death's Harmony Corruption [1990]). But no one did it quite as well as Entombed does here on Left Hand Path; in fact, even the band itself struggled to follow up this album and quickly moved on stylistically.
Track List

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