Live performance:**** Times Seen:2
Forging A Future Self (2006) -8.6
Rareform (2008)-8.8
In Dreams(2010) -7.7
Wolves Within (2013)-8.4
Dig Deep (2016)-
Genre:Progressive Deathcore (FAFS/Rareform/WW)
Genre 2:Melodic Metalcore (In Dreams)
Genre 3:“Djent” (Yeah I said it, get at me.)
For fans of: Meshuggah,The Contortionist, Born of Osiris, Veil of Maya,Born of The Veil of Osiris, groove, breakdowns, chugging, heavy riffs, upbeat deathcore,small tastes of prog.
Status-Touring Label-Sumerian Records
Formed in 2004
After The Burial is a band that knows exactly what sound they want. They have been a band for a good ten years, hailing from Twin Cities Minnesota they have always been grooving along and captivating live audiences with their tasty jams. Their debut album, Forging A Future Self was released in 2006 and I can easily say it is absolutely unlike any other deathcore album I’ve ever heard. From start to finish this album is an absolute trip. I believe every track is very strong. The guitar riffs are filled with groove to the brim with lots of guitar tapping and heavy parts. The drum parts are decently complex, but most of all extremely upbeat and the entire album is exceptional at hyping you up. The breakdowns and snare hits will have your fingers tapping like never before. The only possible downsides to this album would be a lot of people couldn’t stand the original vocalist Nick Wellner. Some people think his voice is to screechy, but if you can get past this you can appreciate his range of lows and highs. However, if you can’t stand that fear not! Three tracks “A Steady Decline”, “Fingers Like Daggers” and “Redeeming The Wretched” were all re-recorded in April of last year with better a better audio quality and with the current vocalist Anthony Notarmaso. In my incredibly not-professional opinion, “Warm Thoughts of Warfare” is one the strongest tracks, with an exciting twist on your average breakdown. The track “Fingers Like Daggers” immediately starts off with a peaceful riff, quickly turning heavy. This song is catchy, fun live, and Nick rolls an ‘r’ while screaming which is god dang sick. This song is important because it shows the slightest amount of progressive influence in it. “Isolation Theory” is another favorite of mine, and towards the end of the song there is one of my favorite ATB riffs ever. It’s truly captivating and I have to admit, I was fairly disappointed they skipped over this song live. Overall, I personally don’t see anything wrong with this album. The only other thing that may certainly irritate some people (especially death metal elitists or core-haters) is the abundance of breakdowns. Whilst I am a firm believes of such thing as too many and ill-placed breakdowns *COUGHEMMURECOUGH* I think they switch things up enough to get away with their average 2 breakdowns a song on this album. I gave Forging A Future Self a 8.6 because I think this album was ahead of it’s time, and I really don’t know any deathcore band that can hype me up like they can. The instrumentals are super catchy, and it’s a total blast to see these tracks live.
The year is 2008. Many people are expecting the new After The Burial to be more of the same. The first difference is the lyrical direction is completely switched around because of the current lack of a vocalist. The album comes out, and everyone is very pleasantly surprised to hear Rareform groove even harder than before. New vocalist Grant Luoma brings a completely new sound to the table. Right from the start, the track “Bezerker” shows how much heavier and more defined After The Burial’s sound has become. The breakdown on this song will cause you to want to mosh harder than almost all of the tracks on FAFS combined. Grant’s vocals could be compared to that of The Black Dahlia Murder, and his highs and lows knock Nick’s away. A lot of people give ATB crap for their obviously programmed drums on this album, but I really don’t think it’s as bad as people make it seem. (You will notice this will be a common theme in my opinions.) Rareform is quite possibly the pinnacle of the progressive nature in ATB’s work. When you listened to the Egyptian themed “Cursing Akenaten” the riffs will stick in your head, and will shred enough for you to air guitar in public without care. This album is clearly heavy influenced by Meshuggah, but not at all close to a rip-off band as some might say. “Drifts” and “Aspiration” will show you a matured and original sound, while “Rareform” and “The Fractal Effect” will have you spinkicking and swinging. This album was re-recorded and re-issued one year later in 09 also with Anthony and while many purely only listen to this album, I truly feel like Grant fits the album perfectly. Although it is certainly a huge improvement to hear how much better the actual live drums sound this time around. Perhaps it’s just because I fell in love with the Grant version before I even realized a re-issue was released. This is not to say that Ant does not perform the album beautifully live. In conclusion, I believe this album to be the best thing After The Burial will ever release. If there’s anything I love, it’s progressive elements in a heavy band, and that is exactly what this album is composed of.
In Dreams… Where to begin. This album represents ATB’s full transcendence into the “djent” scene. Some view this as a downside,although others enjoy this album the most. This album was the first of After The Burial that I heard,and if I didn’t enjoy it I quite possibly would of never checked out their previous albums. This album is a solid metalcore album, with plenty of progressive and melodic elements in it too. “My Frailty” and “Encased In Ice” are probably the most solid songs in this album in my personal opinion. This album is fun and has it’s moments, but it does get a bit repetitive. Especially when it comes to some of the riffs. After The Burial also talks gigantic amounts of shit about other bands as proven by their subtle nods to them in their lyrics of this album:“…I am the contortionist…”, “…I am a ghost inside…”, from these an onlooker could easily speculate that After The Burial is in fact insinuating that they are better than those bands combined!… is what this article would say if it was written by Metal Sucks. In fact, I doubt that was an intentional reference at all and it is unlikely there is any relation. ANYWAY, this album marks the first release with Anthony on it. I believe this definitely could effect the somewhat new direction. If you want a technical, fast-paced or heavy release this album is not for you. Will it make your head bob, and will you be yelling the lyrics when you see them? Quite likely.
So if ATB’s 2010 release gets a 7.6, what the heck will I give the most recent album? Wolves Within released two singles early. These tracks recieved pretty bad press. And then when the album was leaked to certain websites to do early reviews, the internet was flipping out over “terrible sound quality” and saying things like “It sounds like a one armed monkey recorded and mixed this.” so the long awaited album got a very bad rep very soon. Perhaps i’m not talented enough with recording or mixing to notice too much of a difference but those parts did not really make or break this album for me at all. After a lot of comparing this album to In Dreams, I finally decided I kind of like this album better because in some ways it’s like Rareform and In Dreams had a baby. There are more prog elements in here than In Dreams which add cool refined parts rather than all chugging and shredding. And I must say, this album is rediculously cool live. “Of Fearful Men” is After The Burial’s classical heavy hitting opening track on the album. It can certainly hold it’s own against the likes of “Berzerker” and “My Frailty”. The entire release is a fun listen, and it’s extremely interesting how the boys in ATB took such a cliche and overused sound/style like djent and in a way, actually kind of made it their own. They don’t do anything revolutionary per say, but after Wolves Within you can’t really say bands use that style in the same way as them. Wolves Within is also probably the best drum work on any release yet, which is important to back up guitar parts like this band uses with the shreddy dj0nt style. If you haven’t given this album a full listen, I suggest you do. It’s worth checking out and is not the disappointment that some fans make it out to be. Let me know what you think when you do!
Finally getting the chance to see After The Burial for the first time live last April, was very much worth the wait; because it was their headlining tour. In this set list they played songs from all three of their albums including their first single off of Wolves Within. I was very happy to know that all of the songs played with Anthony live were still incredible and they even played some songs off of FAFS that they didn’t re-record which was hella sick. Everything was tight, from their current drummer’s execution of the older material all the way to how heavy it was live. I managed to get first row for the entire show and enjoyed the discography up close. After seeing the oldest songs live, I became obsessed with the debut album. The up close and personal view was amazing. Watching them play that one specific bass part in the title track of FAFS and saying “We are After The Burial!” is something that I will never forget. It was a captivating performance to say the least. The second time I saw After The Burial Wolves Within had already been released and everyone was familiar with it and the crowd was wild. I finally got to experience the physical side of seeing them live, although barely in a small packed out venue. Irving was filled to the brim and the djent moshing was real. People were dancing and pushing to straight up riffs rather than breakdowns. It was enjoyable, and I actually went in a push pit for Berzerker (which I rarely ever do) and it was fun to let off some steam since the rest of the bands that night weren’t gonna have that kind of crowd participation. I gave After The Burial 4 stars on their live performance because they truly know what they’re doing live and literally sound just as good as the album versions of the songs. If you like to mosh, watch, crowd surf or whatever, you can do it all for this band and have a great time. Hope this wasn’t too much reading for you guys! Tune in next week!
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