Saturday, September 20, 2008

ENLIGHTENED BY DARKNESS: Buried Beneath


Produced by EBD

Released: 2007

Rockhampton is possibly one of the last places I'd expect to find a metal band but the capital of the Capricorn Coast was precisely where these boys were from. Buried Beneath was the second CD from Enlightened by Darkness so they'd already had a bit of experience up their sleeves and spent a bit of time driving up and down the Queensland coast playing shows so they were obviously doing a few things right. The most important of these of course is making some decent music, and Enlightened by Darkness certainly did that.

Foremost, EBD was doing what a lot of other bands only claim to be doing, and that was taking a bunch of old school thrash influences and bringing them into the modern era. Almost everything I hear these days making that sort of promise turns out to be just another species of metalcore band, but I challenge the casual listener to find any hardcore element on Buried Beneath.

Instead, this album is wall-to-wall twin guitar melodic thrash. It has a modern sound and delivery, particularly with regard to the varying vocal styles, but in place of those boring and meaningless breakdowns and jumpy-jump parts there's searing and catchy riffs and bursts of lead guitar. Just the way it should be. The production is pretty sharp too, with just the right level of crunchiness and room for the rhythm section to also shine through.

The vocals are a bit of a let down though, especially the clean singing which sounds a bit thin and, occasionally, just plain odd. This was the one aspect of their music that Enlightened by Darkness needed to address. Unfortunately they split up shortly after this was released, but at least they left behind a pretty worthwhile slab of metal.

  1. Scum
  2. Whitechapel 1888
  3. Buried Beneath
  4. Bleed for You
  5. Take This Leper's Hand
  6. Accused
  7. The Blackest Alchemy

Rating: 82%

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