Rareform

Being a relatively new outfit, After the Burial have only two albums at their disposal this far, and while the general concept of the music hasn't changed that drastically in the course of time between them, "Forging a Future Self" was all the things I hate about the "math/deathcore" trend - and while "Rareform" doesn't exactly do the opposite, is still an album that I'd actually recommend to buy.

The ultimate strength of "Rareform" in my opinion lies in it's well performed and compelling - technically and musically - guitar work, which is so dominant that's the rest of the band's outward mediocrity doesn't even come close to spoil the experience. And while the guitarists' technical abilities are a given fact on which I would not elaborate, their musical effort is worth dwelling on. First of all - they take all the common concepts regarding basic riffing and "rhythm/lead guitar" partition and shatter it to pieces. Have you thought that the lower notes on the guitars are only good for power chords and rhythm, the higher notes - for leads and the middle range - for bridging the gap? Not on this one. They go high, they go low, and mostly - they go wide, playing all across the guitar, combining high strings with low - most of the time in the boundaries of a single riff; Now imagine how does it sound on an 8 string guitar - and then check how it's implemented on, say, the title track's opener riff, then you might get why would I go as far as saying "that's how an 8 string guitar must be played".

Another aspect that is hard to be ignored is the sheer amount of influences in AtB's music - starting with the inevitable "Meshuggah parts", through oriental, neo-classical, old school melodic metal and ending on the verge of punk and jazz; AtB's thing for crossing genres and progressive feel was prominent on their previous release as well, but on "Rareform" it is far more well implemented and less abrupt, introducing more fluid passages between different elements - mostly in a course of a single song - without falling out of context. Only a few last words about the aforementioned "Meshuggah parts": apparently AtB decided to let go of the dull pseudo-old-Meshuggah-style palm muted chugging that was so predominant in their previous album as in all of the deathcore trend, and moved to rip off their more recent "Nothing"/"Catch 33" groovy era (the whole song "A Vicious Reforming of Elements" would be a good example). At this stage this experiment leans more towards regurgitation (not good) rather than iteration (good), however they do deserve some credit for pulling that off with credibility and offer something more rhythmically interesting than the damn chuggers - which still reoccur but less often and less annoying.

Yet in all things that are sound and production related, "Rareform" falls quite significantly behind. It just doesn't sound good. It's not totally horrible, you still can hear everything clearly, but I've heard home recordings that sound like - if not better - than this one. First of all - I don't know if they've programmed the drums or played them live on this one, but it certainly DOES sound programmed on a cheap software (this issue is resolved on the reissued version, so might as well go with that if you plan a purchase). However, the more pressing issue here is the total absence of low-end on this album, something's that especially detrimental to the sound of an 8-string guitar (why didn't rip that aspect off "Catch 33"?). It almost seems the album was optimized specifically to not spite the weird folk that prefers to listen to their music on their laptop's built-in speakers.

Overall:
All things considered - especially being part of a long overdone subgenre - After the Burial managed to take off of their first shart of a release and actually craft a solid album that can be enjoyed despite its weaknesses, and at times even displays brinks of originality, a thing I encounter less and less in all of metal these days. So yeah, consider buying if you're a fan of "math-metal" or deathcore, or at least keeping track of it.

[Favorite bits: although sounds like an outtake from Meshuggah's "Catch 33" almost in it's entirety, "A Vicious..." is also as good actually, if not better at times]