Album Reviews : Buried in Verona – Saturday Night Sever

While converting a lot of young fans, it’s safe to say that the whole ‘Metalcore’ shtick is on it’s last legs. However, with the demise of I Killed The Prom Queen a slowly fading memory, it seems that Sydney’s Buried In Verona have decided to come along to try and pick up where the former act left off.

Produced by Swedish studio genius Fredrick Nordstrom in the legendary Fredman Studios, their new album “Saturday Night Sever”, the six piece band have without a doubt got themselves a great sounding record, with every down picked 16th note and kick drum perfectly crisp and full sounding. Of course, great production sure the hell doesn’t mean great songs and the opening tune “The End” basically sums up the whole record pretty well; Stock standard At The Gates/Dark Tranquility knock-off guitar riffs, hardcore leaning screams, a couple of breakdowns and topping it off with some average clean vocals. If this band had released this five years ago they’d be bigger than Bring Me The Horizon, but to be blunt they didn’t and “Saturday Night Sever” is a tired and extremely bland album start to finish.

The terribly titled “Hangin’ Hoes By Their Toes” is another clichéd run through, with the electronic intro and ‘brutal’ lyrics strongly working against the band. The title track is easily the highlight of the album, with a strong solo section lifting the rather monotonous song a little bit. Vocalist Brett Anderson sounds like a carbon copy of Parkway Drive’s Winston McCall, while the clean vocals of guitarist Richie Newman are weak and are a mirror image of the pop punk style. Also the purpose of Buried In Verona having THREE guitarists is also very unclear, with almost every riff on the record easily manageable with just two axemen.

It’s not fun to bag a young Australian band trying to make a break in the music industry, but Buried In Verona simply don’t show off anything other than trying to capture the zeitgeist of the current hardcore/metal scene. It’s hard not to feel like you’ve heard this same formula countless times before, with the songs far from being strong enough to maybe look over the lack of originality. It will no doubt win plaudits from the young fans of the hardcore/Metalcore sound, but the (dare I say) more mature metal fanatics will know that the band is just following the current trend, and will wisely avoid this record. 4/10

Band: Buried In Verona
Album: Saturday Night Sever
Year: 2010
Genre: Metalcore
Origin: Sydney Australia
Label: Riot!
www.myspace.com/buriedinverona

Track listing:

1. The End
2. Temptress
3. Saturday Night Sever
4. Professor Plum in The Ballroom with The Candlestick
5. Hangin’ Hoes By Their Toes
6. Go Go Gadget Suicide
7. Rophynol Sunrise
8. Bell Ringer
9. You Left Me With No Goodbye
10. Cut Wrists & Sinking Ships
11. The Beginning