When ex-Cassius vocalist Myke Terry replaced Bury Your Dead frontman Mat Bruso after 2006's stellar Beauty and the Breakdown, the band were in a period of transition: they'd kept the hardcore alive, but also introduced more melody into their proceedings, creating a different vibe. Not surprisingly, the band picked up some new fans while touring endlessly, but they lost a core faithful who'd been with them from the beginning, too. This is no reflection on Terry. He was exactly what the more expansive music called for, as Bury Your Dead became more a formal "metal" band than a hardcore unit. Move forward to 2011. Bury Your Dead left their deal with Victory Records and signed with the more sympathetic Mediaskare. They also revisited their root sound and coaxed Bruso back into the fold. The end result is Mosh N' Roll, the most brutally satisfying recording in their catalog to date. Bruso is the grand, nihilistic, hardcore lyricist and a presence who commands the same authority as the guitars, bass, and drums (by the way, the mix here is stellar, the drums and bass sound like what they are, not fired and click-tracked and compressed to death). Charging full bore into the bleak oblivion of "Slaughterhouse Five" and taking everything in their path with them, Bruso sets the tone for the set: "I dressed myself for my own funeral tonight/Tonight I drink myself into a fucking coma/Fuck this shit world, each day I'm growing colder....." There is nothing to lose, everything is falling apart anyway, and Bury Your Dead pulls out all the stops down into the sinkhole -- over and over again. Check the six-note riff that opens "Bluebeard," with its knotty, tangled guitars, pummeling drums, and the chanted call and response vocals. These are songs that are meant to be screamed live at an audience who screams back. The chunk and crack of "The Sirens of Titan" is downright scary in its intensity, but giddy in its abandon. The low-end bass notes in "Mother Night" give way to a midtempo rampage that in its assault is as brutal as the band's attack at full speed. "Jailbird," the album's longest track at 3:39, has one of those elastic, instantly recognizable riffs that hints at the stop-and-start violence in the instrumental mix that Bruso meets head on and conquers. Mosh 'N Roll may sound like a throwaway title, but you'd be wrong to dismiss it. This steaming pile was made for the pit, and it doesn't disappoint for a second.
© Thom Jurek /TiVo