Entrench: Through the Walls of Flesh (2017)

Even though I am a huge fan of thrash metal, for some reason the Swedish scene has mostly eluded me.  Oh sure, I have checked out The Crown and Carnal Forge, but I still need to hear quite a bit more.  The Swedish thrash scene is not as highly regarded as the German scene or the U.S. scenes, or even the black or death metal scenes from Sweden, but it does still have a following.  And so, I need to check out more Swedish thrash.

That brings us to Entrench, a newer band whose sound is mostly rooted in the German thrash metal scene.  The album cover calls to mind Sodom, and they seem to be the primary influence musically.  The music here is dirty, raw and fast.  It is the sound of warfare, of bullets flying, and bodies piling up.  On occasion, the band comes close to crossing the line between thrash metal and death metal, particularly on the track "Enter the Fray", which sounds like early Death.  The vocalist delivers his lines in a gruff bark, which calls to mind the early works of the German thrash masters Kreator and Sodom.

This is an excellent album that calls to mind early German thrash metal classics.  Yes, it is really nothing new and it is by no means a perfect album, but there is a reason that the early German thrash metal scene was so good and this album captures that.  Entrench has a couple of other albums out there and I will have to check them out.  I do not think the band is terribly representative of the Swedish thrash metal scene due to the heavy German influences, but it is still damn impressive.