Released: August 23
Buried in Verona is a five piece band from Sydney playing melodic metalcore. I could almost leave this review there and most people would get a good idea of what this album sounds like, but that would probably be unfair. With the demise of I Killed the Prom Queen there is probably a dozen or more Australian bands clamouring the fill the void. Buried in Verona is no doubt one of them, but the reality is that IKTPQ probably broke up at precisely the right time.
On Circle the Dead, Buried in Verona use the template that the Adelaide pace-setters cut on Music for the Recently Deceased and virtually replicate it, making a good fist of it without really doing anything with it. Quirky and unwieldly song titles that don't seem to relate to their lyrics ("Colonel Mustard...") and others stolen from The Simpsons like "Can I Borrow a Feeling?" (which always makes me laugh) aside, Buried in Verona don't really seem to have much else to add to this well-worn genre. First track "Five Bullet Russian Roulette" and the three songs after it are actually pretty full-on metal with some nice snappy soloing and catchy if predictable riffs, probably owing more to an influence from Trivium or Lamb of God than anything. Had they stuck to this sort of thing it would have still marked them as soundalikes, but possibly with somewhere to go. "Taken to the Light" however starts the rot, a commerical metalcore track so formulaic even Prom Queen would have left it alone. The story is pretty much the same for the rest of Circle the Dead really. There's little that reaches out and grabs you beyond the opening few tracks and while all of it is reasonably well put together there isn't much to Buried in Verona's take on melodic metalcore beyond rehashing familiar themes and ideas that have already been done to death. Even the "confronting" artwork is nothing more than overly dramatic emo silliness.
Metalcore as it currently exists reached saturation point some time ago and what it really needs to keep it as a viable genre is a new band to come along with something new to inject into the field. BiV doesn't do this, to their detriment. Circle the Dead is a solid album, but completely faceless among a sea of similar releases and will most likely be forgotten when another one almost the same comes out.
On Circle the Dead, Buried in Verona use the template that the Adelaide pace-setters cut on Music for the Recently Deceased and virtually replicate it, making a good fist of it without really doing anything with it. Quirky and unwieldly song titles that don't seem to relate to their lyrics ("Colonel Mustard...") and others stolen from The Simpsons like "Can I Borrow a Feeling?" (which always makes me laugh) aside, Buried in Verona don't really seem to have much else to add to this well-worn genre. First track "Five Bullet Russian Roulette" and the three songs after it are actually pretty full-on metal with some nice snappy soloing and catchy if predictable riffs, probably owing more to an influence from Trivium or Lamb of God than anything. Had they stuck to this sort of thing it would have still marked them as soundalikes, but possibly with somewhere to go. "Taken to the Light" however starts the rot, a commerical metalcore track so formulaic even Prom Queen would have left it alone. The story is pretty much the same for the rest of Circle the Dead really. There's little that reaches out and grabs you beyond the opening few tracks and while all of it is reasonably well put together there isn't much to Buried in Verona's take on melodic metalcore beyond rehashing familiar themes and ideas that have already been done to death. Even the "confronting" artwork is nothing more than overly dramatic emo silliness.
Metalcore as it currently exists reached saturation point some time ago and what it really needs to keep it as a viable genre is a new band to come along with something new to inject into the field. BiV doesn't do this, to their detriment. Circle the Dead is a solid album, but completely faceless among a sea of similar releases and will most likely be forgotten when another one almost the same comes out.
- Five Bullet Russian Roulette
- All for Nothing
- Colonel Mustard in the Conservatory with the Lead Pipe
- Can I Borrow a Feeling?
- Taken to the Light
- Dirt Nap
- Face of Tragedy
- Circle the Dead
- Don't Call Me Baby
- For Darker Days
- No Time to Die
Rating: 52%
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