UMUR "Nightmare Theatre" is the debut full-length studio album by US speed metal act Exorcist. The album was released through Cobra Records in 1986. It was recorded over a few days in January 1986 and it´s the sole album release from Exorcist, who was a studio project written and recorded by several members of Virgin Steele and drummer Mark Edwards. All musicians worked under pseudonyms. All of them were also involved in the making of Original Sin´s 1986 album "Sin Will Find You Out" (Cobra Records), and some of them in former Virgin Steele guitarist Jack Starr´s Burning Starr 1986 album "No Turning Back! (Napalm Records).

It´s interesting to hear David DeFeis (here working under the Damien Rath pseudonym) singing in a gruff and raw vocal style and only occasionally pulling out a high pitched scream. It´s just another testament to the man´s incredible vocal abilities. The music is sharp, raw, and relatively savage speed metal. It´s pretty straight forward with hard rocking heavy metal riffs, pounding drums, a thumping bass, and DeFeis snarling on top. There´s a dark and demonic atmosphere to the album, which is only further enhanced by a couple of shorter eerie sounding interlude tracks and the fact that DeFeis vocals are often doubled with a demonic voice (I´m actually thinking that Glen Benton from Deicide may have listened to this album).

Songwriting wise you won´t find anything here, which you haven´t heard before, but it´s all really well done, and "Nightmare Theatre" also features a well sounding organic production job, which is pretty perfect for this type of music. A 3 star (60%) rating is warranted.