Artist: Burial
Country: USA
Label: Hells Headbangers Records
Formats: LP / CD
Year: 2025
In its quest for unearthing some unsung genre highlights of late 90’s and early 00’s Brutal Death Metal, Hells Headbangers Records already crossed paths with a few undeniable gems. Although the label’s history shows that the genre has always been part of its release policy, there now seems to be a clear focus on it. Previously, we saw Brutal Death Metal or Grind/Death Metal in the form of Exhumed, Mortician, Last Days Of Humanity, Fleshgrind and Haemorrhage appear on the American label, and recently they have been expanding their catalogue in this direction. We can now add the debut of the American band Burial to that list, a group that has probably gone unnoticed by most, but not for the right reasons…
You can easily speak of ‘Enlightened With Pain’ as being somewhat of a lost gem. Both the band’s debut EP and this full-length record were released by rather small labels, Bottom Out Productions and Lost Disciple Records respectively, which consequently meant that both releases did not reach its full potential. Especially overseas the band went by mostly unnoticed, but even in the thriving North American Brutal Death Metal scene it hardly gained any recognition – except for the real die-hards. When I first heard this album about two years after its initial release (through a download), I thought it was amazing and I was confused that nobody talked about it and it was impossible to get anywhere. Okay, the fact that internet was still pretty much in its infancy and my own lack of experience didn’t help either. Yet, it turned out that time wasn’t on Burial’s side either, as up till now hardly anything changed. The band released another album in 2009 through a label called Wrestling Metal Alliance Records (what?), but I didn’t even know about its existence before writing this review. The band seemingly even still exists, although they apparently haven’t done anything after 2009.
Even the reissue of the band’s first EP by United Guttural Records in 2002 and Pathologically Explicit Recordings’ reissue of that second album (‘Divinity Through Eradication’) ten years after it first appeared, did not change anything. Keeping Hells Headbangers Records’ reach in mind, I can only hope that Burial will finally be able to harvest some well-deserved success.
The music? Burial doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Easy to say in hindsight, but not even if you consider the zeitgeist in which their debut album appeared. But the strength and power of the band do not lie in inventiveness at all, it is the almost flawless execution of the tried and tested formula that they implement. The chunky riffs, rolling drums, roaring vocals, slight grooves and a top-notch production: it all makes up for a phenomenal record. That production in particular is something that really stands out. I am not sure whether this re-release offers the music in slightly updated guise, but I do not believe so. Compared to the majority of their peers, ‘Enlightened With Pain’ hits like a freight train, bulls on parade, a sledgehammer. Most of the albums around those 2000’s suffered tremendously from a rather weak or plastic production. Of course we’re all used to that and over the years learned to appreciate it, but when hearing an album with actual punch and depth, you do realize that most of those other albums are devoid of all of that. On the other hand, while it does sound phat as phuck, it still is very organic in nature and definitely not modern.
But, regardless of the more cosmetic aesthetics of these early goings of Burial, it fits perfectly within the time it was released. It has the obvious bits of Suffocation and Cannibal Corpse as its firm basis, for good measure there’s an extra portion of groove and grinding parts. Subsequently, Burial deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as bands such as Lividity, Broken Hope, Deeds Of Flesh, Jungle Rot, Regurgitation, Pyrexia, Vile, Gorgasm, Mortal Decay, Internal Bleeding, Dying Fetus, Malignancy, Fleshgrind and Skinless. It is no coincidence that the lead singers of the latter two, Rich Lipscomb and Sherwood Webber respectively, made guest vocal appearances on ‘Enlightened With Pain’.
Needless to say, this first Burial album definitely deserved to be reissued and to be presented to a wider and new audience. And, honestly, no better label to bring this Brutal Death Metal injustice to an end than Hells Headbangers Records. With the recent re-releases by Malignancy, Mortal Decay, Rotting, doing another run of Regurgitation’s ‘Tales Of Necrophilia’, and now bringing Desecration’s ‘Gore And Perversion’ and this very ‘Enlightened With Pain’ back to life, Hells Headbangers Records proves that it is consistently relevant and worthy of support in all regards
