"Hideous Obscure" by OCCULT BURIAL delivers an old school hand grenade of devastation. There's a minute and a half intro track which sets up ominous overtones however it's all left by the wayside like a mangled cadaver once the second track "The Blasted Heath" begins. "Hideous Obscure" quickly becomes a frenetic battle charge that keeps the bloodshed coming until the very end.

The band I was immediately reminded of was Japan's ABIGAIL. The band themselves describe their music as "First Wave Black Metal laced with Witching Speed Metal" and that's honestly a great description. Remember the fun of old SLAYER? The spirit of irreverent evil is kept alive and well here. There's a certain lo-fi production value that just adds a raw feeling to every song. It may have been on purpose but this to me sounds like it was made back in the 80's. The songs themselves are pretty straight forward face-melting declarations of war. You'll find killer riffs with shrieking solos in every track. The lead in "Jackal Head" is my personal favorite but every song had something great to offer. Fans of stuff like GHOUL and TOXIC HOLOCAUST will find a lot here to love. The vocals are reminiscent of BATHORY, a sort of hoarse sounding quasi-shriek. The drums in this album are quick and pounding as you'd expect of a heavy metal release however I found it to be a little heavy on the cymbals.

I don't know if it's a mixing issue or what, but the pangs of the cymbals became overpowering, this was really evident in "A Witch Shall Be Born (Daughter of Darkness)." I can understand that lower production values are the result of lower budgets for underground bands and that it can even result in a sort of authenticity being added to a sound. The thing is it can also detract from what is otherwise a clearly talented band. OCCULT BURIAL has unleashed a neck-wrecking collection of sheer devastation on the world. The thrash-style musicianship mixed with the more evil themes and black metal influence work well here to make "Hideous Obscure" a pleasure to listen to. This album is an army of demon's death march. It's spikes and leather and denim in a dark, smoky concert hall. I would hope that fans of the classics will disinter OCCULT BURIAL and raise those horns as they play this album loud.