Just when you thought Victory was going soft in its (relatively) old age by releasing Straylight Run‘s album, the label has come back with a bloody and brutal album more akin to a beating by Mike Tyson. When Tyson was in his prime of course, not the pansy-assed wimp that he is now.** With a name like Bury Your Dead, and an album called ‘Cover Your Tracks’, this was hardly going to be a walk in the park on a beautiful Sunday morning. Imagine the birds tweeting and the sun glistening off the dew on the grass. Then imagine looking over at the view and seeing a a rotting corpse, something so vile and revolting you want to look elsewhere, but feel compelled to stare anyway. That’s an apt description for this album – it’s a record so uncompromising and so, well, uncomfortable, but you feel like you have to keep listening regardless.
I’m not a fan of hardcore music in general, especially bands that are as vicious as this, but there’s something good here that deserves to be checked out. This is their debut for Victory and sees Mark Castillo, formerly of the awesome Between the Buried and Me, back on drums. It’s a record which is visceral and violent, dark and disturbing, uncomfortable and uncompromising. There are tracks to get your mosh on to, infact you can almost picture the spin-kicks and windmills when listening to tracks like ‘Top Gun’ and ‘Risky Business’. Yes kids, every song is named after a movie. Don’t expect ‘Spy Kids’ or ‘Bambi’ to feature mind you.
The promo surrounding this album is very serial killer-ish. ‘Destroy The Evidence’ the ads yell. I mean calling the album ‘Cover Your Tracks’ is a pretty clear indication of what to expect. Joyful and fun this lot ain’t. But if grim and grimey hardcore is your bag, or you want a soundtrack while you practice your mosh techniques in front of the mirror, then give Bury Your Dead a chance. It’s not something I personally would go out and buy, but it grabbed me by the short and curlies nevertheless…
www.buryyourdead.com
Victory
Paul
** Punktastic isn’t looking for a fight, should Mike Tyson’s lawyers just so happen to read this review.