ENTOMBED - "MONKEY PUSS - LIVE IN LONDON" (EARACHE)
ENTOMBED - "MONKEY PUSS - LIVE IN LONDON" (EARACHE)
Released to destroy the event of the release of Entombed's new effort, "Same Difference", "Monkey Puss" is a registration of a live Entombed concert taped during the March 1992 Gods of Grind tour. Earache has the tendency to release some kind of "best of" or a half-arsed live album around the release of new albums of bands that are no longer on their roster, which is a pretty immature thing to do. They did it with Bolt Thrower (and their "best of" effort lacked a lot of tracks that really ought to have been on there), and now they've pulled it off with Entombed.
"Monkey Puss", let's look at the up side, is a faithful recording. However, this means L.-G.'s vocals sound unpolished, half-phonetic and at times tired, lacklustre. It also means the guitars sometimes fall away or display decidedly shoddy playing. All the classics are there, though, including "Revel in Flesh", "Crawl", "Stranger Aeons" and, of course, "Left Hand Path". The sound quality is pretty OK, at least a lot better than that of bootlegs such as "The Truth Beyond". For true fans, who are basically in search of a souvenir of the Gods of Grind tour, the album is probably worth getting.
RK
Written December 1998