Bury Tomorrow are a British metalcore band formed in 2006. The band is composed of five members; lead vocalist Daniel Winter-Bates, rhythm guitarist and singer Jason Cameron, bassist Davyd Winter-Bates, drummer Adam Jackson and lead guitarist Kristan Dawson, who replaced founding guitarist Mehdi Vismara in 2013.
Full disclaimer, I have nothing against metalcore, I actually like quite a few bands and Killswitch Engage is a band that I listen to a lot. But I am very critical and many bands of the genre don't add anything to me. Bury Tomorrow is not a band I was familiar with, but honestly there was nothing else released this week that interested me even remotely. So I decided to give it a shot.
Cannibal is already Bury Tomorrow's sixth studio album and it features 11 songs in 43 minutes. It's a very straightforward metalcore album with short songs and no intros, instrumental tracks or songs hitting the 5 minute mark. The 3rd single "Choke" which opens the album is a bit deceiving as it is by far the best song on the album. The Bury Tomorrow metalcore formula is quite clear: a very balanced split between Daniel Winter-Bates' screaming vocals and Jason Cameron clean singing. But this track is quite aggressive and the clean vocals are limited. It's not the case furing most of the other songs. For example "The Grey (VIXI)" is 60% clean singing. The band uses the clean vocal sections to create a pleasant melody (almost pop/radio -like) with sudden bursts of chugging heaviness. The death metal guitar riffs are heavy but usually gives space to melodic and light guitar phrasing. Guitar solos are underused, despite their potential like the short but nice one in "Voice & Truth". And of course the band uses its breakdowns quite often. My first impression when listening to "Choke" was of a mix of Machine Head with clean vocals that remind me of Jesse Leach from KSE or Corey Taylor in Stone Sour. While I love KSE, in this album's case, it actually reminded me of my least favorite KSE's songs such as 2013's "Always". So, yes, it's very soft album as the clean vocal sections take away the great feeling that the heavy sections have. I mean, I love clean vocals but here they are not only clean but usually very lame. And then a ballad like "Quake" is not listenable. The songs are very catchy, I give you that but that's not enough, I mean, Britney Spears can be catchy, you know?
All in all, this is not the album for me, but I tried and songs like "Choke", title track and "Voice & Truth" are good. I can see myself enjoying those guys in a summer festival (if we ever have those again), but not my cup of tea to listen proactively. I metalcore fan or a someone discovering metal will probably dig this, but for those who are not into this genre, this is the kind of album that gives metalcore a bad name.
SCORE: 69/100
Genre: Metalcore
Released by Music For Nations on July 3rd, 2020
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Rating System*
99 - 100 Perfect
94 - 98 Excellent
87 - 93 Great
82 - 86 Very Good
77 - 81 Good
66 - 76 Mixed
58 - 65 Bad
* slightly adapted on May 24th, 2020 due to statistical review
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