Obscure Evil comes from Peru and, with
their first release, “Midnight Forces”, plays some vicious black/thrash. This
demo contains four tracks of buzzsaw-laden riffs, showing a more extreme homage to
classic bands like Venom, Bathory, Destruction and Witchtrap. Their simplistic
riffing style is easy to latch onto, and makes for some great headbanging
material. Almost as if to cover themselves in a thick layer of fog, Obscure
Evil makes sure that the production on this release is muffled. You’ll need to
work a bit harder than usual to really make out what’s going on with this
release. The primary issue comes from the fact that the hi-hats are so loud, as
they tend to drown out everything else. Regardless of this fact, it is not
impossible to discern the various riffs on this record. This is good news,
because as you might expect, Obscure Evil is well-studied in the ways of
creating great riffs. A surprisingly high number of these riffs feature trills,
as well as some old-school NWOBHM-sounding patterns.
“Midnight Forces” tends to use many of the
tropes of great black/thrash. In addition to the distant sounding production,
this release also utilizes enough ride cymbal abuse to keep all blackened
thrashers happy, as well as some monstrous vocals. The band’s singer doesn’t
quite yell his guts out like a lot of thrash frontmen; instead, he has a huge,
echoing scream that is constantly in play. The result takes an already searing
record, and makes it even more aggressive and brutal. This is both the good and
bad part about this record: it’s authentic black/thrash that sounds like it was
recorded into the most obscure underground facilities of Peru. There’s only so
much you can do right with this sound, and Obscure Evil does everything right;
it’s just difficult to appreciate beyond an atmospheric level. Regardless, for
the 12 and a half minute runtime, this demo will keep you thoroughly
entertained.
Be sure to check out and like Obscure Evil on Facebook!
Highlights
All of it
Final Rating
3.8/5 or 76%.
No comments:
Post a Comment