Bury Your Dead - Cover Your Tracks

Bury Your Dead
Cover Your Tracks
Victory Records
Grade: A-

This record is exactly what I was looking for. Bury Your Dead do the best Hatebreed since, well, Hatebreed. Coming from the classic Northeastern haunts of hardcore, Bury Your Dead was initially formed in 2001 with members of Hamartia and Groundzero, and soon after signed a deal with Europe’s Alveran Records. After some throwing down around the country and a full-length You Had Me at Hello, the band decided to split ways for awhile. Some members rocked out with Between the Buried and Me and Blood Has Been Shed before the band decided to get back together in 2002. Victory went after them immediately after the 2002 Hellfest and we finally have their Victory debut. The first that strikes you on the opener “Top Gun” is the incredibly heavy guitars and bass by Eric Ellis, Blim B. and Rich Casey, the preponderance of double bass by Mark Castillo and the vocal grinding of Mat Bruso. It is very easy to sound generic and non-impressive with this sort of hoodcore, grinding sound, but Bury Your Dead does an awesome job of differentiation. It is almost like try to define obscenity – you know it when you see it. With this sound, it is like you know you when you are hearing quality, good shit. It is certainly that way with Hatebreed, but I’ve heard tons of knock-offs that sound paltry in comparison. Most of the twelve songs cover two to three minutes and feature the brutal attack that you find on “Top Gun.” Though I’m sure there is much more meaning to what I’m willing to think about, all the songs are named after Tom Cruise movies. So, the titles range from “Risky Business” to “Magnolia” to “Vanilla Sky” to “All the Right Moves.” The standard Bury Your Dead consists of basic verse-chorus-verse set up with a mild breakdown at some point where Castillo mashes the double bass. Part of these constructions gives enough throwdown moments to liven up a live audience. To point out one moment on the record, the ending piano of “Eyes Wide Shut” leading to the swirling heavy guitar intro to “Magnolia” absolutely rules. Though Bury Your Dead is touring with like-minded bands (e.g., Scars of Tomorrow, A Perfect Murder, etc.), with the right amount of love they could blow up.