''Wolverine Blues'' is the third studio album by Swedish

death metal Death metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. It typically employs heavily distorted and low-tuned guitars, played with techniques such as palm muting and tremolo picking; deep growling vocals; aggressive, powerful drumming, feat ...

band Entombed, released on 4 October 1993 by

Earache Records Earache Records is a British independent record label, music publisher and management company founded by Digby Pearson in 1985, based in Nottingham, England, with offices in London and New York. The label helped to pioneer extreme metal by rel ...

. The album displays a completely different sound from previous releases, combining elements of

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a loosely defined subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the garage, psychedelic and blues rock movements. Some of the earliest hard ...

, heavy metal, and

hardcore punk Hardcore punk (also known as simply hardcore) is a punk rock music genre and subculture that originated in the late 1970s. It is generally faster, harder, and more aggressive than other forms of punk rock. Its roots can be traced to earlier punk ...

while still retaining much of their traditional, death metal roots, in a style that would later be known as

death 'n' roll Death 'n' roll (portmanteau of ''death'' metal and rock'' 'n' roll'') is the subgenre of death metal music that incorporates hard rock-inspired elements to the overall sound. The achieved effect is that of death metal's trademark combination ...

. The band also adopted a mid-tempo

groove metal Groove metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that began in the early 1990s. The genre achieved success in the 1990s and continued having success in the 2000s. Inspired by thrash metal and traditional heavy metal, groove metal features raspy ...

style for this release, similar to that of American band

Pantera Pantera () is an American heavy metal music, heavy metal band from Arlington, Texas formed in 1981, and currently comprised of vocalist Phil Anselmo, bassist Rex Brown, and touring musicians Zakk Wylde and Charlie Benante. The group's best-kn ...

Marvel

One version of ''Wolverine Blues'' was released with

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publishing, publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Co ...

' character

Wolverine The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for "gluttony, glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is ...

on the cover, despite Entombed never wanting their album to be associated with the superhero. Earache Records, without the band's permission, had made a deal with Marvel in order to use Wolverine to promote the album to a more mainstream audience, with the music video for the title track prominently featuring illustrations of the character. This edition included a Wolverine mini-comic inside the CD booklet. The Marvel edition was also heavily edited, with the track "Out of Hand" being removed entirely. A limited number of early pressings of the album contained audio samples taken from films (most notably ''

Flatliners ''Flatliners'' is a 1990 American psychological horror film directed by Joel Schumacher, produced by Michael Douglas and Rick Bieber, and written by Peter Filardi. It stars Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, William Baldwin, Oliver Platt, and Ke ...

'' and ''Hellraiser III'') which were subsequently removed from later pressing due to record label fears of potential legal action over their unlicensed use.

Reception

In 2005, ''Wolverine Blues'' was ranked number 494 in ''

Rock Hard "Rock Hard" is a single by the Beastie Boys, released by Def Jam Records on 12" in 1984. The track contains samples from the AC/DC song "Back in Black", which was used without obtaining legal permission, causing the record to be withdraw ...

'' magazine's book of ''The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time''. The guitar magazine

Guitar World ''Guitar World'' is a monthly music magazine for guitarists – and fans of guitar-based music and trends – that has been published since July 1980. ''Guitar World'', the best-selling guitar magazine in the United States, contains original art ...

labeled ''Wolverine Blues'' as "1994’s best death metal effort and quite possibly the finest death metal album of this decade."

Track listing

Credits

Lars-Göran Petrov Lars-Göran Petrov (17 February 1972 – 7 March 2021), often abbreviated as L-G or LG Petrov, was a Swedish singer. He is best known for his work with death metal band Entombed. Career Petrov's musical career began with his playing drums in ...

– vocals *

Uffe Cederlund Entombed is a Swedish death metal band formed in 1987 under the name of Nihilist. Entombed began their career as an early pioneer of Scandinavian death metal which initially differed from its American counterpart by its distinct "buzzsaw" guita ...

– guitar, tambourine *

Lars Rosenberg Lars Rosenberg (born 2 February 1971) was a bass guitarist in several musical bands: Therion (1994–1996), Entombed (1990–1995), Taura (2000–2002) Serpent, Roachpowder, Carbonized Carbonized were a Sweden, Swedish avant-garde metal ba ...

– bass *Alex Hellid – guitar *

Nicke Andersson Nicke Andersson (born 1 August 1972), also known as Nick Royale, is a Swedish musician best known for his work as the singer and guitarist for the rock band The Hellacopters and drummer for the death metal band Entombed. He was also briefly the ...

– drums, design, artwork *Tomas Skogsberg – producer, engineer *Z. Benny Rehn – photography

References

{{Authority control Earache Records albums 1993 albums Entombed (band) albums