Entombed

The circumstances surrounding the short series of shows this live album was culled from are totally surreal: Sweden’s legendary death metal/thrash‘n’roll outfit Entombed playing at an opera house with ballet dancers fluttering away behind them as they crank out tunes like "Say it in Slugs.” Man, I can’t wait for the DVD! As for this disc, well, you can’t hear the ballerinas tip-toeing around, so it becomes just another live album. However, it’s noteworthy for Entombed, as the band has publicly spoken out against their only other live album, which they didn’t authorise (hi Earache!); Unreal Estate becomes the first official live documentation of a band that has grown and changed so much in their career it’s truly shocking. Which is the other reason this one is interesting, just to check out the tracklisting, which finds the band eschewing their death metal beginnings for the more streamlined, punked-up, drunk thrash and Motörhead-style rip-‘em-up hardcore that has permeated the band’s past few albums.