Bury Your Dead "Cover Your Tracks" CD
[Victory]
12 tracks of brutal metalcore in barely over 30 minutes, and every damn song is named after a Tom Cruise movie. Say what!? Yeah, go figure. That's a pretty damn amusing move, I have to give 'em credit for that. But anyway, this is no bullshit metalcore with shitloads of chugga styled breaks, chunky chord progressions, and throaty vocal grunts. Take a little European styled note-based riffing, toss in a lot of Throwdown type of stuff (including the whole borderline groovy Pantera riff kind of thing), and this is about what you'd come up with. They keep the songs short but sweet with few topping three minutes, and they mess with a good range of tempos to help the mosh breaks jump out at you while adding some speedier energy elsewhere. Not bad. I definitely think the recording needs a little work, it took me about 10 minutes to get used to it, but I can live with it now. My biggest issue is that the guitar tone kind of has that overproduced distortion happening - it makes the groovy parts churn up a little much and can sound like it's caving in on itself during some of the slower note-based riffs. Aside from that, the drums definitely lack density and the bass sort of disappears behind the guitars, so there are definitely some gaps in the mix. The guitars and vocals are hard-hitting enough to hold it down, but tweaking the rhythm section and backing off on some of that thudding guitar clunk could make this thing sound fucking stellar. I like the songs, though. The Pantera sounding riffs can get to me here and there, but they keep things pretty evenly divided as far stylistic dispersion goes. "Magnolia" is the only song that gets much more melodic at points, which really stands out and is truly fucking promising; "Mission: Impossible 2" goes for the throat and comes off as more forcefully memorable than most of the other songs; "Risky Business" is almost double the length of the other tracks and sort of cruises along at a solid midpaced stroll, but it's still one of the more effective compositions; "All the Right Moves" tosses in some unexpected dissonant chords that wouldn't hurt elsewhere; and "Losin' It" is basically a moshpit outro: Shout, "Bury your fuckin' dead!", repeat, repeat, etc. I'd fucking love to hear them explore the melodic aspects more though, because they don't lose their edge at all, and the songwriting really starts to crush when they hit on those moments. The layout's pretty good. I'm not really into this style of design with all of the narrative photographs and stuff, but the photos are high quality, and everything is setup really clean and consistent, so it's far better than your average take on this kind of thing. The story of the images seems to deal with infidelity, murder, and disposal of a body (basically), with the lyrics taking a personal road dealing with relationships, hardships, all that stuff. I like the honest approach though, it's blunt without being too stripped down: "I never said I was a fucking poet. I never tried to be something I knew I'd never be. There's no use in pretending..." This is a good listen. The recording irritates me more than anything else, because I know minor adjustments could improve the end result, but nonetheless... it's good to see another heavy band on Victory Records again, and I bet these kids will do more damage down the line. But more melody, please. I'm telling you, that one riff in "Magnolia" shits all over everything else on this record, it's fucking amazing! (7/10)
Running time - 31:07, Tracks: 12
[Notable tracks: Magnolia, Mission: Impossible 2, Risky Business]
Victory Records - http://www.victoryrecords.com

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