EXHUMATOR comes from the mind of Bulgarian multi-instrumentalist The Piff (aka Ivaylo Jordanov). The project's country of origin was hostile to metal music at the time, with the prevailing Iron Curtain political climate essentially banning western music from entering the Eastern Bloc. Metalheads of the era had to rely on dubbed tapes smuggled from the west, which were not in wide circulation. After trading a few Uriah Heap tapes for his first guitar, the Piff played in a number of bands in the nascent Sofia metal scene throughout the 80s. The Piff soon learned to play the drums as well, inspired by a negative experience he had working with a particularly unreliable drummer. This mastery of several instruments would prove crucial to his later work as EXHUMATOR. An early lineup featuring the Piff and guitarist Malkiya (aka Dobrin Filipov) would choose the moniker DICTATOR in 1989. Their first performance was at a Bulgarian metal festival in February 1990. The group was well-received, being one of the first extreme metal groups from Bulgaria. Two demos were recorded (according to the Piff, the masters for these demos are lost). DICTATOR went through a large number of lineup changes (including about eight different guitarists) before the Piff parted ways with the group at the end of 1991. EXHUMATOR was born in the wake of this decision. The Piff handled the drums, guitars and vocals for EXHUMATOR and brought his former bandmate Malkiya to play bass. Blending a mix of classic 80s thrash/first wave black metal with the death metal explosion of the time, the inaugural work of EXHUMATOR evokes the early recordings of TORR, MASTER'S HAMMER, and early RUNNING WILD. The first two full lengths were recorded during the same four day marathon recording session in 1991, with the first featuring songs initially written in the late 80s as DICTATOR. Both records would not see a release until 1993. NWN! Productions has worked closely with the group on every detail of this release, including the lyrics translated from Bulgarian to English. The layout design of the LP is a faithful reproduction of the original cassette release. NWN! Productions is proud to release this classic document of Eastern European metal for the first time outside of Bulgaria.
