Dudemanguy's Musings


Hidden - Embalm 〜Enbalm After 20 Years〜

Originally written on April 26, 2019

Unearthing a Gem from the Underground

It was the early 1990s. The vast majority of essential works in the thrash metal canon were already released. By this time, the genre was rapidly in decline and in a very precarious state: both artistically and commercially. In light of these circumstances, it's not too surprising that a band like Hidden gets lost in the dust of time. They had a few demos and a couple of proper songs on the Melodical Renaissance split (which also featured other excellent bands like Fatima Hill), but the group soon fizzled out and was no more. The band simply showed up too late to the party, and the metal scene was moving in new, different directions.

However around 2017, some small rumblings on the internet were heard. Hidden suddenly created a facebook page. Songs on youtube were posted. Plans for releasing an album were slowly, but surely being set in motion. There were certainly a few setbacks and delays on this front, but admirably the guys didn't give up. Time continued to pass on, but finally a firm release date of January 23rd, 2019 was set. Old recordings from 1995 were rescued from obscurity, remastered, and put on disc (for the very first time for some of these songs). Embalm 〜Enbalm After 20 Years〜 (amusingly, the notes in the booklet explain that it's not a misspelling) essentially functions as the band's "posthumous" album as well as a bit of a compilation of old demo tape songs.

The band officially considers this their first album, and I agree with that interpretation. The songs here do fit together very nicely and flow from one to another smoothly. Stylistically, Hidden plays 80s-style technical thrash metal. Of course given how late they were to the scene, we aren't really breaking any new ground or destroying any boundaries here. Doom became Japan's representation of highly-innovative, progressive thrash metal years before Hidden even formed. Nevertheless, the songs Hidden put together are all very enjoyable and well worth a spot in the collection of any thrash metal fan, especially those that enjoy a little technical edge.

Ignoring the mandatory intro/outro tracks (which are harmless and don't really add much or take away anything from the work here), it's understandable to be a bit concerned when looking how the fairly long song lengths. Are the songs really good enough to hold your attention for 9+ minutes? Rest assured, the answer is a resounding "yes." The song structures are all basically verse-chorus with a super long bridge section, but every section is packed full of ideas so it never feels stale.

In terms of actual sound, Hidden fits right in with all of your favorite 80s thrash metal bands: both compositionally as well as production wise. The guitar tone just oozes that classic thrash sound with tons of grit and bite. The drumming is clearly from a time period long before the "trigger era", and the actual production is far from being totally polished and clean (just how we like it). Listening to Embalm 〜Enbalm After 20 Years〜 is exactly like stepping in a time machine and discovering a long, lost band from thrash's heyday (ignore that these guys were technically a few years late).

Of course, I've said that Hidden was a technical thrash metal band, so the riffs often are angular and twisty in nature. Every musician here is clearly very talented and skilled at their instruments. The music is plenty complicated and far beyond the reach of your typical pizza/party thrash band. But at the same time this album is not nearly as mindbending as some of the stuff from the likes of say Watchtower so Hidden sits sort of in a middle ground. They are still plenty heavy and hard-hitting riff-wise, so your average thrasher will more than likely dig the stuff here. However, the band has plenty of technical instrumental work to make the prog/tech guys in the room happy as well.

Of all the musicians here, the only one that has any sort of name recognition is the guy on vocals, Hideaki Niwa. That's because he's also Vigilante's vocalist which is a progressive metal band that's still active today. If you've ever listened to any Vigilante albums (the first two are excellent by the way), then you'll know what to expect here. Niwa is the high-pitched wailer type of vocalist. Basically just think of the vocals from either one of the first two Watchtower albums, add a Japanese accent, and you'll get Niwa. The sharp contrast between Niwa's crazy wailing, and the heavy thrashing riffs work surprisingly well. Yeah, the lyrics are full of grammatical errors. And yeah Niwa's accent is pretty strong. But since most of the vocals are in the unintelligibly high-pitched register anyway, it really doesn't matter much.

Regarding the actual songs, the one that resonates the most with me is definitely Lunatic Theater. All of the best elements of the band combine perfectly on this particular track. The riffs are earworming and amazingly technical. The chorus is unbelievably powerful and catchy. And of course, the solo section is nothing short of jawdropping with the insane plunge into neoclassical-inspired territory. Both guitarists trade off exhilarating solos with each other before ending it with an incredible dual lead with a time signature change. It's just simply brilliant.

I'm really glad the guys from Hidden took the time to rescue this material and put out this release. The stuff they recorded was downright excellent. It's always a good feeling when a gem from the underground gets rescued from obscurity. Hidden may not have been technical thrash metal innovators, but the style they played is extremely enjoyable nevertheless. There's plenty of facemelting solos and riffs to make the snobby tech guys happy, but at the same time everything is perfectly digestible for your average thrasher as well. Whenever I'm in my tech thrash mood, this release is one I've been going back to very often. It's just awesome stuff.

Rating: 90/100