By Jim Shea
It wasn't long ago that Victory Records took a stab in attracting the "mainstream" crowd with their bands. So it's no wonder why Victory Records now have many of today's top bands such as Atreyu, Taking Back Sunday, Streelight Manifesto, Hawthorne Heights and many others. When it comes to hardcore music, they've got it covered with a good number of hardcore acts on their label as well. Recently, Victory struck gold again with the release of Bury Your Dead's latest album, Cover Your Tracks.
The first thing you'll notice about Cover Your Tracks is that the band has an apparent obsession with Tom Cruise. All of the track names in Cover Your Tracks are named after Tom Cruise movies, but the reason for their obsession with Mr. Cruise is still up in the air. Whatever you do, don't fall under the impress that Cover Your Tracks is a cover album of theme songs from Tom Cruise movies.
In any case, Bury Your Dead combines hardcore and metalcore together in this album with great results. Cover Your Tracks is refreshing for one thing, as the band shreds through each track with a few breakdowns here and there.
What makes Bury Your Dead stand out from most hardcore bands is that the band throws out the generic style of music found in hardcore metal and uses the metalcore sound to establish a trademark sound.
Songs such as "Top Gun" and "Legend" are fast and furious tracks, which hardcore bands are meant to do, but you have dramatic changes in songs like "Magnolia" and "Eyes Wide Shut," which give new meaning to the songs themselves. When it comes to pacing, the rhythm section of Mark Castillo (drums) and Rich Casey (bass) gets things done right while Slim B. (lead guitar) and Eric Ellis (guitar) give structure to the songs.
It's hard to believe that a hardcore band consider Sevendust, Crowbar and Pantera to be their influences, but in reality, that happens to be Bury Your Dead's strongest point in Cover Your Tracks. This album will definitely be remembered as a crafty hardcore effort that will attract listeners starting to get into hardcore music. Victory Records has done it again as Bury Your Dead is another winner from a long list of Victory bands who have met the same success.