It’s been a while since I’ve been graced by a Swedish death metal band that’s not of the likes of your commonly heard Arch Enemy or Entombed. It’s always good when you’re maybe looking for a little melody in your death metal, or just for that groovy Swedish flair. Entrails has been on the scene for quite a bit, but they don’t seem to have the household-name status of some of the aforementioned bands. That obviously doesn’t mean they’re not a solid band, and in fact World Inferno should prove that very well.
World Inferno is the band’s fifth full-length release, and just to come right out and say it, it’s not bad. It’s really not bad at all. I can’t say that I was really overwhelmed by it, but it is just a pretty solid album of a pure and good Swedish death metal sound.
"World Inferno"
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5J3ZPpOORc[/youtube]
From the opening track, “World Inferno”, this album immediately evoked the sounds of the good ol’ bands like The Haunted to me. The guitar tone is super gritty and overdriven, and full of double-picking and chugging. If it’s one thing you’ll be doing a lot of while listening to this album, it’s definitely headbanging. The riffs range from being closer on the death metal spectrum of rapid-fire speeds, to the other side of fist-pumping and groovy riffs like in “Serial Murder (Death Squad).” And this album really doesn’t stop either. From start to finish, World Inferno is firing on all cylinders.
"Serial Murder (Death Squad)"
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7ppvoeEKK8[/youtube]
Now, as I stated before, I wasn’t exactly speechless over this album either. It’s not bad, and that’s about as positive as I can get. Because this album is pretty hot from beginning to end, there’s very little contrast differentiating each of the tracks from one another. It all can sort of clump together, and make remembering certain songs that much harder. And while I genuinely am a fan of the super overdriven guitar tone, it is near impossible to discern anything that is being played unless you’re piping this album through a good stereo system, or top of the line headphones. And the difficulty to discern each of the guitar parts also make it a little tougher to distinguish certain tracks from the others.
It’s also not very groundbreaking. That’s not necessarily a criticism, but it is important to note for review purposes. Someone stumbling across this album with no context in mind might dismiss it as nothing special, or even as something boring. And like I said before, while I would never describe World Inferno as boring, I would describe it as monotonous. It took a good couple of listens to latch on to certain songs for memorability.
In conclusion, is it a bad album? Absolutely not. It is a pretty solid album and a fantastic display of Swedish death metal power. The best part about this review is that Metal Blade has already released a full album stream of World Inferno on YouTube for you to form your own opinions on the album. Entrails has put out a pretty solid album, and even though I found it to be a little tedious, you might not.
Score: 7.5/10
World Inferno Full Album Stream
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pILMag3Lwo[/youtube]