Review by Rachel Jablonski
My first major experience with Bury Your Dead was just a short time ago at the Family Values Tour in East Troy, Wisconsin. Prior to this show, the band’s music was foreign to me with the exception of a single song I had heard off a CD sampler handed to me at Sounds of the Underground in Minnesota. Listening to the sampler on the way back from St. Paul, I was not much impressed with the unstructured Bury Your Dead track. But the band’s stage presence at Family Values redeemed them somewhat as their playful nature, consisting of goofy poses for my camera, swinging guitars, and so on, proved to me that structure and seriousness were not so much a main goal. With that in mind I’ve listened to the band’s latest release, Beauty and the Breakdown, numerous times searching for some level of intended construction within the album.
Though the lighthearted, high energy nature worked well on stage for Bury Your Dead, the band’s playfulness does not translate quite as well on record. The hardcore vocals, reminiscent of Hatebreed to a degree, and heavy guitar rhythms are very similar and consistent throughout the album, allowing the sound to become somewhat bland. The album does have great musical intensity, but unfortunately the less than serious dynamic found on stage is masked by this and leaves the listener oblivious to intent.
What may be even more puzzling to the listener are the song titles. Alluding to fairytales, the song names, such as “House of Straw,” “The Poison Apple, “Trail of Crumbs,” and so on, seem to have little to no meaning for the piece they describe. The most intriguing part of the album does relate to these song titles however. The album insert booklet is designed to look like and tell a fairytale-like story that encompasses some of the lyrics.