In Dreams

Djent is the worst metal trend since nu-metal. I'm sick of bands like Periphery and Tesseract who are just listening to Meshuggah, trying to copy them and doing a shit job of it. However, there is one band associated with the djent scene that isn't absolutely abhorrent. That band is After The Burial.

The band are certainly attempting to play Meshuggah-esque music, but adding different elements to the typical djent sound. The songs in this album aren't incredibly varied, but merely competently played. You have slower, chilled numbers like To Carry You Away and Pendulum and faster, more aggressive songs like closer Encased In Ice. The band hold together progressive elements, melody and heaviness together incredibly well. The band are constantly switching between catchy metalcore melodies, technical wankery, crushing breakdowns and fucked up polyrhythms. While this is usually a pet peeve of mine in djent and mathcore, the band aren't just switching styles for the sake of showing how complex musicians they are. The way they do it definitely has a refreshing human feel

The lyrics seem to deal with personal loss, which may see the band being written off as "emo", and they aren't that intelligently written, but I'd rather have something like To Carry You Away than the typical nonsense that Periphery churn out (Jetpacks Was Yes? Really?). The vocals are the weakest point on the release. The vocalist doesn't have much in the way of range, using standard metalcore barking and occassionally higher pitched shrieking. There is also some clean backing vocals that usually work in contrast to the harsh screams.

The production is perfect. It's very clean and all the instruments can be heard over eachother. I personally don't care how clean and "sterile" (god, I hate that word) the production is. It's better than being done with a shitty tape recorder in your garage.

This is a superb effort from a band who are the one worthwhile entity an otherwise bland and annoying trend. Definitely worth a listen.