Unending Futility

This release caught me off guard. Having been whelmed an entirely ordinary amount by the debut, I had almost no expectations for this release either way beyond more of the same, maybe with the production being given a new lick of paint and the musicianship tarted some. But I was wrong. Live Burial have pulled out all the stops and applied a sophisticated, almost progressive approach to their brand of frantic, varied death metal. The song writing has jumped forward a few steps to the point where I feel as if I’m missing a transitional album that got us here, because to be honest this almost sounds like a different band to the one we found on ‘Forced Back to Life’.

Tremolo picked riffs running through sophisticated melodies reminiscent of Incantation will give way to colliding breakdowns, only to jump into frantic yet straightforward death metal, experimenting with both tempos and key. They also make good use of dynamics throughout, sometimes subtly, simply by allowing certain chords to ring out whilst the bass is granted time to shine by accenting each note. The guitars, in granting space for the rhythm section creative space, are given a solid framework to build the music into patiently crafted crescendos and finales. The result is at once progressive yet epic death metal without any of the tiresome swagger that these tags usually suggest. Vocals, while remaining at the high end for death metal, are awash with reverb. They are also delivered with genuine feeling, adding a sense of drama that draws the listener in to the experience.

Although the playing is pretty technical in places, it avoids the common pitfalls of being overindulgent or working in weird time signatures for the sake of it. Each intricate drum fill, guitar lead, or tempo change works towards the final goal of melancholy, introspective death metal that nevertheless retains plenty of bite. As a result we must once again turn to the question of why ‘Unending Futility’ succeeds where similar attempts have failed. This album undoubtedly references many classics of the genre but avoids being as derivative as it might have been. Whilst the concrete reasons for this may be hard to pin down, I believe it is simply because ‘Unending Futility’ is not a one-dimensional release, unlike many recent albums in a similar vein. Yes, this is undoubtedly old school worship, but it captures the sophistication of death metal’s most beloved albums. One feature of which – and why they became classics in the first place – is a sophistication and emotional range lacking in other, less revered works. A lot of old school revival albums pick one or two features and rustle up an album around these scraps. Live Burial by contrast have stamped their own identity on this well-trodden ground, and in doing so have created an album with more diversity and ultimately a more enduring appeal than a lot of death metal currently floating around.

Originally published at Hate Meditations