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OBNOXIOUS YOUTH “Burning Savage”
OBNOXIOUS YOUTH “Burning Savage”
By Dr. Abner Mality
There’s tons of bands going for the retro sound these days. They aim for classic thrash, death, NWOBHM, hair and doom sounds. Some nail what they’re looking for, many just come across as a nostalgic knockoff. But this Finnish/Swedish conglomeration has done something that almost none of those bands has...they have found the youthful wildness and unpredictability of a metal genre that was just beginning to reach beyond itself.
Yes, the Good Doctor has got some years on him. I was there in the days of the early 80’s which metal was exploding. Things were wild and crazy, bands tried things with no respect for barriers or strict definitions. That’s what OBNOXIOUS YOUTH have tapped into here. “Burning Savage” is a whirlwind that flies all over the place...they throw everything at the wall and see if it sticks. So this is not just another recreation of a particular sound, like crossover thrash or German speed metal. This is raw creativity. Over the course of this album, I hear VOI VOD, VENOM, IRON MAIDEN, EXCITER, punk rock, classic metal and even New Wave and analog synth. It’s a crazed, filthy mess...and it’s great, because you never know just what’s coming at you.
I can’t even go into things by song, we’d be here all night and most of tomorrow. Very few tracks stick to the same vibe all the way through. Stuff like “Torrents of Black Blood”, “Tornado of Blades” and the title track cover ground all the way from early SABBATH up to the very birth of death metal. But there’s a real punkish attitude and snottiness, especially in the vocals, that hovers over the entire project. And sonically, it really does sound like it comes from about 1984.
If you like speed, slime and snark all wrapped up into an unpredictable package, OBNOXIOUS YOUTH is here. This will remind greybeards of those glory days when things were unsettled and ATTITUDE was king!
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