UMUR
"Unreal Estate" is a live album released by Swedish death metal act Entombed. The album was released in February 2005 by Plastic Head/Candlelight Records. The album was spawned by a rather odd project between Entombed and the Royal Swedish Ballet. Entombed were contacted by two choreographers from the Royal Ballet and were asked to work with them creating a ballet featuring Entombed´s music. According to the liner notes the band first thought it was a joke, but after meeting with the two choreographers they were hooked to the idea and started to work on the project. The project ended up in 12 shows performed in 2002 at the Royal Opera House in Stockholm, Sweden featuring Entombed and 35 ballet dancers.
The 11 tracks on the album are all from the band´s back catalogue (except "It Is Later Than You Think" which I´m pretty sure is exclusive to this release). Most tracks are from the (at the time) most recent release "Uprising (2000)". There are also select tracks from albums like "Morning Star (2002)", "DCLXVI: To Ride Shoot Straight and Speak the Truth (1997)" and "Left Hand Path (1990)". The latter is represented by the outro to the title track, but that´s the only track on the album that represents the early Entombed releases. The Roky Erickson cover "Night of the Vampire" is also included in the setlist and as usual works like a charm when performed by Entombed.
The performance is flawless and organic like usual for Entombed and it´s interesting how obvious it is that it´s an opera house and not a "regular" concert venue when the audience claps between the tracks, but other than that you don´t really feel or notice the ballet part of the show. I´m sure this would have been a much more interesting release if it had been released as a DVD and not as a live album. While the performance is good and the sound quality really good I think the setlist drags the album down a bit. "Uprising" is a decent enough album, but not among the band´s best IMO and as most of the material on "Unreal Estate" is taken off that album I can´t say my enthusiasm about the setlist is too high. I´d say somewhere between a 3 and a 3.5 star rating is fair.