Bury Your Dead

It’s Nothing Personal

[4/5]


Having already perfected the art of the piledriver riff, Bury Your Dead expand their horizons dramatically on their fifth album incorporating gigantic melodies and pervasive moods of confusion and despair. Bolstered by mature songwriting and vocalist Myke Terry’s impressive range (which opened up sonic avenues previously closed tothe band with his debut on 2008’s self-titled release), It’s Nothing Personal has “mainstream breakthrough” written all over it.



Of course, hardcore purists will decry this deviation from the thuggish sound that made the band; but this isn’t selling out, it’s trading up, taking everything that made the band vital before and adding new and intoxicating flavors. The devastating choruses that throb at the hearts of “Without You” and “Swan Song” are equals to the best penned by the likes of Fear Factory or Slipknot. Although the dark melodies of “Dead End Lovesong” and “The Forgotten” succeed in occupying the same headspace as the towering anti-anthems of Alice In Chains, it should also be emphasized that all the songs on It’s Nothing Personal are still crushingly heavy. The band’s trademark thunderous riffs and inhumanly precise rhythms combined with Terry’s dark and confessional lyrics ensure that this could at no point be considered a “pop” album, and there is plenty to sate those clawing for a soundtrack to total and utter mosh-pit annihilation.



The most surprising element of the album comes at its close with “Closed Eyes” and “Enough,” both of which serve to completely pull the rug out from under the listener. The former is a noisy dirge trawling through bleak territory, the kind of song Thrice might have come up with during their Vheissu period had they been on a strict diet of Cult Of Luna and Will Haven; the latter is a delicate piano lament that closes the album on a poignantly chilling note. While the unfurling of these tracks is undoubtedly jarring, they somehow provide the perfect coda to the mauling that has come before. In making such a confident move, the band kick the door wide open to do whatever the fuck they want to next time. (VICTORY) Dan Slessor

GO DOWNLOAD: “Swan Song”