Bury Your Dead

Bury Your Dead

[2.5/5]

The title of Bury Your Dead’s 2006 album, Beauty And The Breakdown, concisely summarized that record’s aesthetic–hold the beauty. The Boston-based band’s staggered riffs pummeled listeners like jab-cross combinations, with tough-guy vocalist Mat Bruso’s blunt delivery exacerbating the barrage. On Bury Your Dead, breakdowns serve as brutal codas to songs built around more subtle, slow-winding grooves. New singer Myke Terry (ex-Cassius) covers a broader range than Bruso, supplementing his throaty bark with gruff and tuneful choruses and a few startlingly clear harmonies. Lyrically, he treads familiar hardcore territory, focusing on betrayal (“Why did you turn on us when we needed you the most?”), condemnation and group hugs for underdogs (“This is an anthem for the broken”). Guitarists Eric Ellis and Brendan “Slim” MacDonald, freed from their usual reliance on lockstep chugging, offer glimpses of greater ambition, such as the flashy solo during “Year One,” the forlorn intro to “Angel With A Dirty Face” and the “Paradise City” jangles that open “Fool’s Gold.” Drummer Mark Castillo uses his double-bass pedal creatively, his rhythms evolving with the compositions instead of slavishly pushing the pace. But for all its incremental instrumental progress, Bury Your Dead feels like a transitional record, on which a group who ranked atop the moshcore pileup find themselves in the middle of the general-metal pack. (VICTORY) Andrew Miller

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