A few years ago, the Bury Tomorrow camp was rocked when founding member and singer Jason Cameron announced he was stepping back from the band. Losing members is tough for any band to endure, but when that person has been there’s from the very beginning and is a core part of your sound, it can turn that initial ripple into a tsunami. Rather than let it consume them, though, they did something far better. They rode that wave, and once they were on the other side they thought “wouldn’t it be fun if there was six of us?”
Enter new rhythm guitarist Ed Hartwell and keyboardist/clean vocalist Tom Prendergast. Two new members to fill Cameron’s big shoes, but giving them the ability to add a texture to the band that they didn’t have before. They’ve explored their new sonic possibilities on new album ‘The Seventh Sun’ and, despite the hardships they faced and hurdles they had to overcome, they’ve come out on the other side standing taller than ever. Welcome to the new Bury Tomorrow.
This is every bit as monstrous and meaty as you could’ve hoped for. Album opener, the title track, sets the tone perfectly – jagged metallic chugs, banshee like shrieks, groove-heavy riffs and soaring melodies, all coming together to provide an irresistible adrenaline hit. Tracks like the towering ‘Boltcutter’, the intense thrill ride of ‘Forced Divide’ and the crushing riff-fest ‘Care’ hit like several tons of bricks, all scattered with huge chorus hooks that all make the heavier sections connect just that little bit harder. It’s immediately very clear that they aren’t holding back.
There’s a couple of surprises here too. ‘Majesty’ is a poignant piano-led ballad, littered with cinematic flutters and distant echoes to really summon the emotions to the surface. Album closer ‘The Carcass King’ really steals the show though; a wonderfully atmospheric and emotive journey that features a wonderful guest spot from up and comer Cody Frost, their vocals providing an almost ethereal element to the fury unfolding around them. It’s one of their most confident and cohesive sounding records of their career – beautifully paced, diverse and effortlessly executed, all the while staying true to their metalcore roots.
Speaking of the execution, the band have never been tighter. Hartwell and lead guitarist Kristan Dawson’s riffs are so clear and punishing, drummer Adam Jackson and bassist Davyd Winter-Bates are so locked into the endless stream of grooves that you’ll find yourself head-banging to every song in seconds. The most impressive performance here, though, is vocalist Daniel Winter-Bates; he has never sounded better.
Whether he’s demonically growling “how could they do this to us” on the evil ‘Abandon Us’ or venomously spitting “consume, ignore, restrict, behead” on the relentless ‘Heretic’, his vocals are both terrifying and crystalline. You hear and feel every word that leaves his mouth, and the range he’s developed over the years has given his vocal performances so many different shades. They juxtapose Prendergast’s voice perfectly, like light and dark. They’ve always been strong in the ol’ vocal department, but this album puts them on another level entirely.
Bury Tomorrow have fine-tuned every part of their sound and come back even stronger than they were before. That’s a hell of a sentence to take in considering they were already one of the flag-bearers for British metalcore, but this album feels like they’ve unleashed something that hasn’t been a part of their genetic make-up before. It sounds so cliche, but the heavy bits really are heavier, the melodic bits really are more melodic, and the overall impact that this album has is borderline nuclear. The fact that the band lost one of their key members and have come back to release something that has so much focus and power is staggering. They’ve always been powerful but now they’re unstoppable, and this album is definitive proof of that.
‘The Seventh Sun’ is a visceral, brutish, ominous giant of a record, and the shadow it casts across the metalcore genre is enormous. A new bar has been set – who dares to try and raise it?
DAVE STEWART