It happened in 1990/1991 in the small village of Linneryd in southern Sweden. After spending time in various metal bands, Jimmy Lundqvist and Fredde decided to start a death metal band called ENTRAILS. Shortly thereafter, Tobbe and Billy joined the band and they began to rehearse like maniacs in a converted woodshed. Their main idea was to follow the scene that Stockholm brought to light around the time with bands like Dismember, Entombed, Grave and many more that cemented the brilliant Swedish death metal sound from T. Skogsberg’s Sunlight studio. Unfortunately, all attempts to record a demo at the time did not produce satisfactory results.
In 1994, half of the line-up decided to move on and do other things, and by that time ENTRAILS were put to sleep as an official band. Lundqvist continued writing songs in the following years, but even that was put to rest in 1998.
In 2008, ENTRAILS was finally resurrected. Lundqvist found some old ENTRAILS-recordings in a tape collection and, in a moment of nostalgia, decided that they deserved to be released as they should have been originally. With modern recording technology, the first ENTRAILS demo could finally take shape.
Lunqvist spent several weeks choosing songs for the new release. The title, and overall theme, is Reborn. Lundqvist recorded all of the instruments except for the vocals. Vocal duties were eventually helmed by Jocke Svensson after some recommendations from friends. In the summer of 2009, ENTRAILS first demo was finally out under the title "Reborn". A fully loaded demo with 10 songs and an intro taken from the original material with only some minor changes in riffing and lyrics.
Reviews turned out to be awesome and Lundqvist didn’t hesitate and immediately began working on material for the follow-up album. Again, a lot of music from the old demo tapes were recycled and became a part of the next ENTRAILS demo. This demo was named "Human Decay", and once again Jimmy recorded all the instruments with Jocke handling the vocals. In the winter of 2009, the ENTRAILS demo was released consisting of five songs, an intro and a cover of Dismember’s "Casket Garden".
Following the release of the demos, offers from various record labels started to drop in and in early 2010 ENTRAILS signed to the German label FDA Rekotz. Jimmy realized more members had to be found to make ENTRAILS a real band. Old friend Matte Nilsson joined as a guitarist and also Jocke joined on a permanent basis as singer/bassist. Fredrik Widigs joined for the recordings as a session drummer. In April 2010, everything besides the drums was recorded and produced in Jimmys own studio and then got mixed and mastered at Unisound by Death Metal guru Dan Swanö. In June 2010, ENTRAILS first full-length was released under the title "Tales From The Morgue". An album featuring songs taken from both demos with a sound that had similarities to all those glorious Swedish death metal albums recorded in the early nineties at the infamous Sunlight studios.
Once again, the reviews were great and ENTRAILS became more and more popular among those digging and enjoying old-school death metal. After the release of the debut album, ENTRAILS welcomed Adde Mitroulis as the permanent drummer in the summer of 2010. In late October, ENTRAILS did their first show ever with this new line-up at a local place in Växjö and in November they played a German mini-tour with four dates and also had "Tales From The Morgue" released on 12" Vinyl the same night they played the K17 in Berlin.
In May 2011, ENTRAILS started working on the follow-up album. The drums were recorded at a local studio and everything else was recorded and produced at Lundqvist’s own studio. The mix/mastering was handled again by Dan Swanö at Unisound. In the summer of 2011, ENTRAILS performed at Muskelrock festival in Sweden and at Obscene Extreme Festival in the Czech Republic.
In September 2011, the second album "The Tomb Awaits" was released featuring the rest of the songs from both demos and also with some old songs from the past mixed with some brand new ones. FDA Rekotz handled the European release while Dark Descent Records from the USA did the album in North America. The reviews and feedback on "The Tomb Awaits" was even more massive and the album got maximum ratings on several bigger magazines and blogs.
During the winter of 2011/2012, the band negotiated with several labels about a new record deal. ENTRAILS were officially signed by Metal Blade Records in March of 2012.
During the negotiating process, Jimmy started working in his studio writing new songs; a few riffs from his old recordings have been recycled, but the main portion is brand new. In April, there were 13 songs ready to be rehearsed with the band. The rehearsals went well and the songs felt better and better until finally, on the 28th of July, ENTRAILS entered Racetrack Studios and quickly recorded the drums for 11 songs in just a few hours.
In August, the boys began to perform shows, the first of which was Party San, the band’s biggest stage performance to date. The week after, ENTRAILS went to the mighty Summer Breeze festival in Southern Germany. In September, the basic recordings for the album were done in Jimmy’s studio. By the end of the month, the band went to Esbjerg, Denmark to do a show, and the weekend after ENTRAILS played Hell Inside Festival in Germany. Afterwards, some more tracks could be recorded to the album. In early November, the band accepted the invitation by death metal legends MORGOTH to join them for two shows: the Stromgitarrenfest in Berlin and a club show at the infamous Turock club in Essen, Germany.
After this period filled with killer shows, the boys played one last show in 2012, which took place in the capital of death metal: Stockholm, Sweden. It was the first show ever for ENTRAILS in Stockhom. Back home, the last recordings has been completed and the material was sent to Dan Swanö for mixing and mastering. Raging Death will surely prove to be the finest ENTRAILS album to date.
Flesh ripping Death Metal Madness, from Belgium