PREMATURE BURIAL is for the most part a one-man project with some guest contributions here and there. Equally influenced by NWOBHM and Thrash Metal, what comes out is a storm of galloping riffs and four-on-the-floor drum work, with surprisingly gravelly vocals. The lead work is particularly indicative of this hybrid, displaying a mix of melodic IRON MAIDEN-like licks and whammy bar histrionics.

Where "Back to Zero" came straight in with gallops and energy galore, "Oceanic Burial Ground" starts things with a more mellow intro. The riffs are the same kind of Classic Metal as on the previous song, once they kick in. The main riff sounds like it could have come from a JUDAS PRIEST song if the guitar tone used on the album was different. Despite the quasi-growled vocals, it isn't difficult to understand the lyrics.

"Alpha Wolf in No Man's Land" opens with a brief spoken monologue describing, presumably, the alpha wolf in the title. The deep-voiced vocalist lends an ominous touch to it. The song overall is replete with melodic riffs and flourishes, but still has a punk aura to it. It sounds a little like if Steve Harris had been in MOTӦRHEAD. The next couple songs are one song in two parts. The first part, "Tombchild", starts slowly and doomy, with ponderous unaccompanied guitar ringing out; when the drums enter, the slower speed is maintained, but the feel turns into a stomping groove. Accordingly, the solo is melodic and free of noisy atmospheric tricks (like whammy dives and pinch harmonics). Because the two songs are split, there is no pause before "Tombchild" transitions into "Reptile Eyes"; which kicks in with a tribal-sounding drum pattern that repeats almost for a minute and a half before turning into more traditional metal drumming. Guitars chug along in a midtempo palm-muted attack, occasionally broken by chord stabs.

"Comdemned to the Twilight Zone" is mostly more of the same riff-wise, and forgettable as another iteration in a sea of similar-sounding songs, except for the guitar melodies that act as bridges between the vocals. Simple, but rousing, they keep listeners interested between the frankly generic palm-muted riffs. "Creator and Destroyer" mixes things up though, with a Mongolian throat-singing-like intro, leading into faster thrash riffs. There is a split-second shift in the feel of the song before the solo, just enough to signal a climactic moment. The solo at the end of "Creator and Destroyer" does happen to be one off the better ones on the album.

I have no idea who or what G'Mork is, but he/she/it is rising, apparently; "G'Mork Rising" comes in on a backdrop of crackling flames, with mellow clean guitar ringing on top for a little over a minute. Vocals don't come in until about 80% of the way through the song, but despite it being largely instrumental, the riffs are similarly low-ended and cookie-cutter as they are elsewhere, with no instrumental melodies to speak of.

There isn't much to say about the last two songs on the album: "The Grave Song", perhaps appropriately, sounds a lot like GRAVE DIGGER, especially with the gravelly vocal performance, and "Seekers of the Truth" is a CRO-MAGS cover, that does seem to fit the sound of the band. This version sounds a bit darker than the original, either because of the guitar tone or the vocals.

Overall I would say this was an OK album, with some good riffs and some fun lead breaks, but it is also very monotonous at times. The vocals are unexpected for the style, but make sense after a while of hearing them.