Entrapment - Imminent Violent Death

Suck dis member

Well if nothing else, this is the best fuckin' album cover I'm going to see all year.

Entrapment hails from the Netherlands, and they carry some of the Dutch trademarks of Asphyx/Van Drunen, but one look at their band logo should tell you where their hearts truly lie.  Yeah, these guys are Swedeath to the bone, doing everything they can to replicate that famous Sunlight Studios sound and loading their fourth album, Imminent Violent Death with loads of d-beats and hoarse shouting, but at the end of the day there's really not much to say about these guys other than "They're a Dismember clone".

Now let's gone one thing straight: Dismember absolutely fucking rules.  I'd go so far as to put Like an Everflowing Stream right at the very apex of the Swedeath hierarchy in general, above even seminal classics like Left Hand Path and Dark Recollections.  So if there's any band you're going to rip off, Dismember is a damn good choice.  I don't think innovation is a necessity in metal, per se.  I think bands that just play by the rules can absolutely fucking smoke.  Hell, Demonical is another band that just jerks off Dismember a whole bunch and they've been one of the most consistently entertaining bands in the style throughout the decade.

So where does that leave Entrapment?  Well, a couple of notches below bands like Demonical and Smothered.  There's nothing inherently wrong with this album, it's just another drop in the bucket and doesn't do a whole lot to stand out.  There aren't any bad tracks here, just no great ones.  The closest thing there is is probably "Morbid Habitation" simply because it's the fastest and most manic, with vocals being delivered at a Corpsegrinderesque pace.  "Process of Dehumanization" and "Sacrilegious Congregation" are based around some ferocious, violent riffage, while "Sanctifying Putrescent" is just pure fucking speed the whole time, and there are some nice dips in tempo on tracks like "Incantation of the Grotesque" to keep things from getting to stale, but ultimately this is pretty cookie cutter Swedeath we've all heard a million times before. 

It's hard to say more about it because that's basically all there is here.  It's razor sharp riffs with pummeling ferocity but it's pretty unremarkable on the whole.  There's nothing wrong with paying homage to your heroes, but Imminent Violent Death is just really average Dismember worship and that's the long and short of it.


RATING: 69%