In Dreams

I’m not really sure this is djent. I don’t think it is. It could be. No. This screams more of progressive metalcore or deathcore to me. I discovered After the Burial years ago, listening to SiriusXM. They play a lot of this “chug-a-chug-a” stuff on there. I guess that’s the new stuff?

There’s some melodic death metal influences in tracks like “Pendulum” or “Sleeper”. It’s great, and the album is at its best whenever the influence turns up. There’s a ton of progressive elements to be found as well. Practically every song has got those syncopated bass drum and guitar patterns, and then halfway through that part the drums will switch it up a little and then sounds off time from the guitar. This is most evident in the song “Your Troubles Will Cease and Fortune Will Smile Upon You”. This is a hallmark of djent, so I can see why this would be labeled as such. There’s also some clean vocals here but I don’t think it really should be here. It’s on softer tracks such as “To Carry You Away” and “Promises Kept”. These songs show the band’s metalcore influence. This is shown in the lyrics which are so cheesy. From the opening lines of “To Carry You Away”,

“Who
We are, I’ll never know
But when we spoke
I knew you well
You knew me well
You loved me through and through”

I don’t know what happened to their songwriting abilities on this song because on the song before this, “Bread Crumbs and White Stones”, the lyrics were just fine.

Sometimes the band just stops and then the guitar will just go with their off time riff that’s really trippy. I think the weirdest one is at the end of “Promises Kept”. After this ballad-like song, they just drop it and go straight into this face-melting rhythm, complete with the syncopated guitar-bass drum patterns. I don’t know why it’s necessary. “Encased in Ice” starts up with this Latin-drum beat. It doesn’t really connect to anything else in the song so I wonder why it’s here. The vocals… oh boy.

The vocals need a paragraph to itself. These vocals from Anthony Notarmaso are boring. Very boring. And the problem is, every single band I hear on SiriusXM (I listen to Liquid Metal, channel 40) sounds exactly like this guy. These bands are so boring, partly because of the vocals. What happened to the personality of the vocalist? The unique sound each one has? Like John Tardy’s low, watery, growl. Or Chuck Schuldiner’s high-pitched screech. Or Glen Benton’s demon summoning sounds. Or even Chris Barnes’s horrendous pig squeals. These new vocalists sound like if I told a computer to make me a vocalist that uses death growls but it’s more of a scream than a growl. Then it generates it and out comes Anthony Notarmaso. It’s so basic-sounding. Listening to this album, which is pretty short, actually, got me a bit drowsy by track five. Listening to this guy was so boring, and he never tried to differentiate the sound from song to song to keep you awake.

The song structure is about as generic as it can get for music like this. Low cut drumming or guitar riff. And then they turn off the low cut and get into the song. Of course, the syncopated drumming with guitar. Then a verse. Then there’s this part with death growls and clean vocals underneath it. And then there’s going to be this part where its silence and then the guitar cuts in. And then they turn on the low cut again on the vocals. He screams into this huge breakdown and then all the instruments get in. Again, with the syncopated drumming with maybe some ghost notes to “spice it up”.

To give you the rundown, After the Burial gives us a really heavy deathcore record. It has its faults, but all in all, it’s a solid album. If there was more diverse factors at play it would be much more interesting.

Highlights: Your Troubles Will Cease and Fortune Will Smile Upon You, Pendulum, Bread Crumbs and White Stones