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Buried In Verona

Faceless

Written by: PP on 19/03/2014 23:00:24

"Notorious" in 2002 made Buried In Verona a sensation in their home country of Australia. It was hailed as one of the best metalcore albums in a while over there, which actually says a lot considering how many solid bands they've exported in this genre over the years. For third album "Faceless" then, the band has regressed into something a little more generic and boring, following along the lines of chugga-chugga masters in Emmure in writing bland riffs that barely qualify as such given their tendency to follow the one-chord pattern to eternity.

The band are fronted by an incredibly monotonous grunter, whose shouts and screams offer basically no value to the record except for a distraction from the real strength of this band: clean vocalist Richie Newman. His technically sublime delivery is awe-inspiring at times, especially so on "Eclipse", "Splintered", "The Damned", and in particular, "Illuminate". The latter track is a candidate for the catchiest metalcore track in 2014, and offers insight into just how big of a range Newman possesses. Throughout the record you'll find similar moments where you can't but help wonder why a talent like his is wasted in a sub-par band that can't write memorable riffs or convincing shouted sections even if their life depended on it. To say that Newman carries the album entirely on his shoulders is not an overstatement, it is fact. Consider the instruments: very heavy, down-low, but incredibly boring. Even the backing string instrumentation on "Catatonic" serves as nothing but a cheap facade over what is really going. The growls we already covered - these are actually horrifically bad now that I really get down and analytical about them. Not even a hint of charisma or technical ability is present here.

Perhaps that's why the record includes a song like "Set Me On Fire", all clean vocals and very poppy, almost qualifying for a ballad if a metalcore song can ever qualify as such. While I'm not a big fan of the song itself, it highlights the difference in pure technical ability that the members of the band possess.

But thanks to Newman, the album isn't terrible. It's just a standard, somewhat formulaic metalcore album, that is heavily, heavily dragged down by its instrumentation and growled vocals, and saved outright from pure mediocrity by Newman's frankly fantastic performance.

Download: Eclipse, Splintered, Illuminate, The Damned
For the fans of: Emmure, The Amity Affliction
Listen: Facebook

Release date 07.03.2014
UNFD