:: Bury Your Dead - It’s Nothing Personal

Bury Your Dead

If there’s one thing Massachusetts hardcore/metalcore act Bury Your Dead can be counted on, it’s changing from one album to the next, and never retaining the same line-up as the one that recorded the previous release. And true to form, the new look Bury Your Dead return with their fifth full-length effort ‘It’s Nothing Personal’ – their follow-up to 2008’s ‘Bury Your Dead’. Although there’s always been an element of progression and change within Bury Your Dead, there’s no denying that the band have really gone out on a limb and tried something completely new on ‘It’s Nothing Personal’, with the album’s sound and direction sure to divide long-time fans into two distinct groups - Followers of the band’s past, and those embracing the band’s present.

The opening track/first single ‘Hurting Not Helping’ is the first taste of where Bury Your Dead are heading direction-wise this time around, with Terry utilising his clean vocals for most of the song, while the band’s hardcore/metalcore sound has also been given makeover, with a large dose of melodic and groove taking over from the straight ahead aggression of the past, not too dissimilar to Slipknot in places. The Slipknot comparisons continue through to the heavier moments found on the pounding follow-up track ‘Without You’, while the faster ‘Broken Body’ (Which was released as the second single) manages to project more of Bury Your Dead’s original sound (Making it a clear stand out cut early in the album), but with Terry switching to melodic clean vocals in the choruses to counterbalance the aggressive verses. The slower and more experimental ‘The Great Demonizer’ does have some good ideas in places, but is marred a little by Terry’s attempts to put forth an evil persona, while the band’s attempts at atmospherics on the closing duo of ‘Closed Eyes’ and the piano based ‘Enough’ just sound a little out of place and at odds with the rest of the album. Thankfully heavyweight efforts such as ‘Dead End Lovesong’, ‘Swan Song’, ‘The Forgotten’ (Featuring Emmure’s Frankie Palmeri on guest vocals), ‘Lion’s Den’ and ‘Legacy Of Ashes’ help erase the memories of the former failed efforts.

‘It’s Nothing Personal’ might be heavier that previous Bury Your Dead albums, but it’s also the most melodic effort the band has recorded to date. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, but overall the two factors don’t quite see eye to eye on all the tracks this time around. ‘It’s Nothing Personal’ is good, but I can’t help but feel that this is a transitional album for Bury Your Dead, and that with the release of their next album, they will have finally found a way to master the mix of brutality and melodic sensibility more consistently.