ENSLAVED Pays Tribute To ENTOMBED's LARS-GÖRAN PETROV: 'We Were All Lesser Men Beside You'

Norwegian metal avant-gardists ENSLAVED have paid tribute to Lars-Göran "LG" Petrov. The pioneering ENTOMBED and ENTOMBED A.D. singer died on Sunday, March 7 after a battle with bile duct cancer. He was 49 years old.

Earlier today, the members of ENSLAVED shared a couple of photos of them hanging out with Petrov, and they included the following message: "Dear LG, dear friend, when we heard about your unfortunate passing, we felt we lost a part of ourselves. Your impact on us, for more than 30 years, has largely contributed to shape our musical DNA. When we picked up 'Left Hand Path' in the summer of 1990, we just thought 'This is our musical path, this is where we are heading'. The energy and madness you unveiled with your bone chilling vocals on this album has never left us. This is still THE to-visit-album when we feel nostalgic and beer-thirsty.

"'Left Hand Path' was the first mutual ground for us. When we met at the first PHOBIA rehearsal in 1990, Ivar wanted to sound like Uffe and Alex, and Grutle wanted to sound like LG. Robert Plant and Freddie Mercury wasn't the biggest vocalists in 1990, it was Chris Reifert and LG Petrov, period.

"Some years later we would meet each other at festivals around the globe, and we became friends. We even had some collaborations! At an ENSLAVED/ENTOMBED gig in Gothenburg in 2006, Grutle joined LG on vocals on 'Left Hand Path', and when ENSLAVED assembled a special show, including cover songs, at Hole In The Sky 2009, LG was the first one we contacted. He ended up doing vocals on, of course, 'Left Hand Path'. That was a huge moment for us, and stands out like a monolithic milestone in our career.

"On a personal-off stage manner, meeting LG was like an injection of vitamins and positivity! Whenever we met him (like on this pic of a hungover-like-a-freakin'-baboon-moment from an early morning on an airport somewhere) we always ended up having a laugh and we all cheered up, always.

"LG, you had an absolutely unique down-to-earth precence as well as being an out of this world talented musican and frontman. We were all lesser men beside you.

"Shine on LG, you crazy diamond".

Last year, Petrov revealed his cancer diagnosis, writing in a note on a GoFundMe page that doctors were unable to remove the cancer, but were trying to "control it with chemotherapy."

Petrov originally fronted the cult Swedish death metal band NIHILIST in the late 1980s, before the group split and reformed as ENTOMBED.

ENTOMBED's acclaimed debut, 1990's "Left Hand Path", landed at No. 82 on Rolling Stone's list of the "100 Greatest Metal Albums Of All Time".

ENTOMBED A.D. was formed in 2014 when Petrov and other members of ENTOMBED decided to change the band's name in order to avoid a legal battle with ENTOMBED guitarist Alex Hellid who didn't want his former bandmates to use the ENTOMBED moniker.