Unending Futility

Live Burial are back with their second album of crushing old school death metal.

Cavernous doomy riffs, grisly drums and soaring lead work sets out an atmospheric soundscape of pure morbidity to get things on the right track. Haunting vocals chime in with ferocious and maniacal screams that work gorgeously with the eerie instrumental sections to hit a mixture of Asphyx and Obituary reminiscence while delivering something otherworldly too in the vein of Grave Miasma. Thoroughly tense and aggressive, the ambience of this record is what makes it stand out to me with a chillingly enticing sound and the musical skill to back it up.

Savagely tormenting and utterly unhinged, this record has plenty of diversity among the killer riffs and relentless drumming as well as the vocalists uniquely disturbed growls, there certainly is not even a second that is dull on here. This is a vitriolic album with raging musical destruction among a blizzard of howls and ghastly songwriting with a concisely clean production to make sure you do not miss any of the many nuanced gritty details. Packed with groove, suspense and blasting, roaring onslaughts of pure death metal brilliance with some supreme technicality on the solos, this is the kind of material I think everyone can get behind. Snarling with total chaos and viscerally insane structures, this record will grip all who check it out from start to end with its macabre blend of modern and more primarily old school death metal obliteration.

The warmth from the bass player really comes through stunningly in the same manner of Death and Bolt Thrower which gives the clarity of the production even much punchiness that allows the jumps from riffs to be smoothly transcendent and retain all the punishing glory the band set out to create. This is superbly tied together and well thought out death metal which holds that primal and energetic feel of the classics but with a renewed set of killer ideas.

Definitely one to check out to see just how well the UK underground of extreme metal is doing. A spectrally crushing second album that exceeded all expectations, fantastic material from start to end that is as spine-chillingly atmospherics as it is violently brutal.

Written for www.nattskog.wordpress.com

Death is, by nature, a depressing concept that lends itself well to the slow, sludgy world where the gravely pace of doom metal and the dissonant tonality of the style that bears the subject’s name. Ironically enough, the roots of death metal itself are tied in more directly with the frenetic, agitated character of thrash metal, and most of the sub-genre’s early progenitors were more closely associated with said scene than not. However, even before the close of the 1980s there were indications that certain affiliates of the Florida scene were hinting at something that lived less on impact and more so on atmosphere, with both Obituary and Autopsy spearheading a forerunner niche to what would become death/doom. However, it would be a couple of noteworthy outfits from the smaller and less prominent British death scene that would carve out a stylistically nuanced crossroads where death metal’s thrash and doom proclivities could exist in a sense of twisted harmony.

Following in the aforementioned tradition that was explored by the likes of Benediction and Bolt Thrower in the early 1990s, Newcastle natives Live Burial have crafted a formidable offering in sophomore LP and death thrashing monstrosity Unending Futility. Moving away from the more prominent death/doom of Asphyx that painted much of their earliest material and their 2016 debut Forced Back To Life, it is an album that turns back the clock a few years toward something a bit more traditional and technically involved, though still possessed of that agonized sense of hopelessness that comes with even a subtle doom influence. The dimensions carved out by a low-fi and fuzz-drenched production gives these songs a sound heavily rooted in the dreariness of The IVth Crusade, and also occasionally the more brutal and morose character of Immolation’s Dawn Of Possession when the tempo is kicked up to a more blasting roar.

In contrast to what has been a trend towards a humbler and more rustic approach to musicality that puts an emphasis on droning riffs and hypnotic yet fragmented dissonant melodic passages in doom-leaning death metal of late, this is an album that isn’t afraid to turn on the intricacy factor maximum impact. Among the more blatant examples of this is the generally conventional mixture of fits and starts with the looming threat of execution via the passage of time “Swing Of The Pendulum”, which features some fairly shred-happy guitar solo work reminiscent of Chris Murphy in his youthful prime and occasional animated bass hooks channeling Geezer Butler. Another curious interlude into divergent territory is the haunting ballad/instrumental interlude “Winds Of Solace”, which also features some interesting bass work amid what can be best described as a dreary part classical, part jazzy acoustic ditty that sounds more appropriate as the intro to a King Diamond song rather than something on a death metal LP.

Although this album doesn’t really meet the threshold of droning slowness worthy of having the doom moniker stamped on its resume, it has the uncanny disposition of featuring its strongest moments on the slower and longer offerings. The disquiet and discord sewn on “Rotting On The Rope” is disturbing enough to chill the bones of any old school death trustee with a taste for early Obituary with a dash of that muddier and lower-fidelity New York sound. But the best is saved for last when “Cemetery Fog” makes its way into the equation, featuring some of the busiest riff work heard in the older style and some truly jarring shifts in feel. Even the generally conventional mid-ranged roar of Jamie Brown takes on a particularly agonized tone, accompanied by a sizable collection of technical feats among the various instrumentalists, including a truly riveting guitar solo at around the 5:30 minute mark, all but perfectly revisiting the agitated soloing style the Hoffmann brothers took to Deicide’s seminal offerings.

While the trend of revisiting older death metal sounds has been a fairly popular one over the past decade, Live Burial is onto something a bit less heavily explored of late, and makes themselves distinct from a growing number of bands seeking to channel the classic Leprosy style by exploring murkier territory. It may not be wholly original territory, but the sort of early 90s transitional sound of Bolt Thrower and mid-90s thrashing yet measured Benediction niche hybrid on display here is definitely less common. The more drawn out song structure approach is tempered with a tendency towards frequent and usually jarring transitions between extremes, all the while eschewing the moderated death ‘n’ roll sound, resulting in something far more enthralling and climactic. It’s perhaps a bit more of a grower than it is a shower, but it’ll definitely grow on you quickly, not unlike the agents of decay that the lyrics dwell upon with a poetic fervor.

Originally written for Sonic Perspectives (www.sonicperspectives.com)

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