June 11, 2009 | | 3

Burial Hordes, Devotion to Unholy Creed

Burial Hordes: Devotion to Unholy Creed

I don’t know much about the Mediterranean country of Greece, but if the metal coming out of there is any indication, it’s ground zero for the Apocalypse. Burial Hordes unleashes eight tracks of unfiltered, unrefined, raw-as-fuck black metal.

Overall, Devotion to Unholy Creed doesn’t make any false attempts to remake the inverted cross, if you will, but what it lacks for in originality it more than makes up for in delivery. The guitars are distorted and full of plenty of texture as they drive you to the edge of a vast precipice. Drumming duties, handled by Impaler, come across with plenty of vehemence and mayhem. The vocals are of your typical black metal variety, yet are layered nicely with spit through the speakers with a profound hatred for the living.

The key that really ties this album together with freshly removed innards (in a pretty bow, nonetheless) is the production, or lack there of. Devotion to Unholy Creed sounds as though it were recorded deep in the raspy throat of Satan himself — raw, gravely and sick.

Praise the Bloodcode of Hatred
“Praise the Bloodcode of Hatred” gets Devotion to Unholy Creed with manic, barbaric drums and driving guitars. The vocals come in a variety of flavors: raspy screams, guttural growls and higher end black metal shrieks. There’s plenty of opportunities for some serious head banging with this song. This thing is no frills devastating metal at its best.

Devotion to Unholy Creed
The title track carries the unrelenting hordes of dead along their unholy course. There are some nicely varied time signatures that make an appearance throughout this song that break up the galloping pace a bit — making it that much more of an interesting track. I love the guitar work and utter eruption of frenzied activity at the 2:20 mark.

Infernal Necromancers
“Infernal Necromancers” starts off with some slick guitar work and thick bass rumbling. The drums come in shortly after and maintain a mid-tempo pace for the first 45 seconds or so before shifting up a gear. The track fades out slowly.

Hellborn
This next on is the shortest song on the disc, coming in at 2:49, and the band do their unholiest in cramming as much evil as they can into the truncated length. The drums are furious and blasting as the thicker guitars driving along like a freight train with no brakes. At times the vocals get a little drowned out by the frenzied activity, but it works to the songs advantage in this instance, allowing the overall feel of the song to dominate.

Gods Cutthroat
A bit of a punk feel gets this song off to a raucous start along with a massive scream. Once this thing gets underway there are plenty of tempo shifts and dramatic moments of spotlight vocals and thundering drums. This track feels much longer than it is, in a good way mind you. There’s plenty of stuff going on, including one hell of a creeping sound clip to end out the track. Seriously, I’m sort of freaked out.

Abysmal Goatfeast
The same sound clip makes its way into the beginning of “Abysmal Goatfeast” in a smooth transition into the initial mid-tempo bludgeoning pace. The drums and guitars ramp up the hate about 30 seconds in with blasting drums and caustic, black metal guitars. The vocals are a bit distant and occasionally layered to great effect. My only question is this: does a “goatfeast” involve eating a bunch of goat or are the goats doing the eating? Just curious.

Splendid Destruction
“Splendid Destruction” starts off slowly with mood building guitars and light drum work for the first 30 seconds until the layered vocals come in. The pace picks up quickly with catchy drum work and beefy riffing. There’s a good deal of groove that weaves its ugly head through this one.

Stench of Immortal Doom
Burial Hordes don’t waste anytime getting down to sacrificial business with the final track on the album. “Stench of Immortal Doom” is raw enough to make you think you smell the acrid sulfur of Hell’s abyss, but that was probably just dinner catching up with you. There are plenty of evil guitars throughout a track that is pushed along by punishing drums and distant screams and growls.

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Favorite Tracks:
All of them

Additional Notes:
N/A