After
Entombed left Earache Records after
Wolverine Blues, the label released this eponymous odd-and-ends compilation, which is primarily comprised of the band's EP releases:
Out of Hand,
Stranger Aeons,
Crawl, and Night of the Vampire. There's some good music here, even if almost half of these dozen songs are covers (
Kiss' "God of Thunder,"
Repulsion's "Black Breath,"
Roky Erickson's "Night of the Vampire," et al.) and another quarter of them well-known singles ("Out of Hand," "Stranger Aeons," "Crawl"). Still,
Entombed is for completists only -- those who don't already own the respective EPs, that is -- since the best moments here are more ideally heard elsewhere: the singles on their respective albums, the covers on the double-disc covers collection Sons of Satan Praise the Lord, and the
Clandestine outtakes on the reissue of that album, where they're appended as bonus tracks. Besides,
Entombed was an ill-intentioned cash-in release by Earache in 1997, released concurrently with
To Ride, Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth, the band's long-awaited follow-up to
Wolverine Blues. ~ Jason Birchmeier