Entombed - To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth (1997)

Not sure why everyone pisses and moans about this album all the while praising 'Wolverine Blues' as the be all end all of Entombed's death -n- roll turnover. Sure, I mean, if you didn't have a taste for this sort of thing to begin with, than I can totally understand, but I'm perplexed as to what the big difference is in both albums. For one, 'TRSSASTT' is the very last album by Entombed to feature the notorious "chainsaw" guitar sound that they themselves created so long ago under the Nihilist moniker. It also features the same style of balls out, death drenched classic rock that the band had introduced on the 'Hollowman' ep. Now if you're crying because Entombed abandoned the full on death metal sound of Left Hand Path and Clandestine, then sure, that makes plenty of sense, but to dance a festive jig and howl praises to the sky over Wolverine Blues, only to cop out like a limp dick over this album makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. WB and TRSSASTT are stylistically identical. Every ounce of beer soaked aggression that made Wolverine Blues such a behemoth to behold has been seamlessly carried over onto this album. Each song a one hitter quitter.

It's funny because Entombed does a better job at emulating  the classic rock of the 70's than most bands who dedicate themselves to wholly copycatting that style, originality be damned. The infamous 'Sunlight' sound coating each riff with a drunken rage that would make a berserker cringe in fear.

This album marks an end to an era. Obviously, the album after this is where it all began to unravel for the band as apparently, the band were transfixed by the sounds of Creed and Candlebox and felt the need to give their own take on that style of music. Of course we've all the praises of how the band "returned to their roots" starting with 'Uprising' and culminating with 'Morning Star', but to me that's a huge pile of misinformed bullshit. Entombed have never recovered, despite the fact that I actually don't mind, and to some extent even enjoy some of the albums they've released since TRSSASTT, but the fact of the matter is that their death metal days vanished after the release of Clandestine and the mighty 'Skogsberg/Kuzner' sound was cast aside for good after the release of this album. Bottom line.

Do yourself a favor and pick this up and give it an honest shot. Fuck the naysayers. This is a full on Entombed album in the classic sense and they haven't sounded this damn good since.