In The Burial

I have no idea who still believes technical metalcore is an exciting proposition. It was once, when acts like Beneath the Massacre first dropped, but our ears became desensitized very quickly. That's why it's great to hear an album like Born of Suffering, the debut from Australia's In the Burial, which kind of brings me back to the early '00s, when Relapse put out the greatest compilations around and pushing the boundaries of technicality was still a noble pursuit, not a bore. It takes a few tunes to get rolling, but by "Amarnthine's Departure," I'm sold. The melodic guitar intro to "Portantes de Morte" is almost memorable, which is a plus; a minus is the dull, croaking vocals throughout the disc and the operatic singing introduced in closer "In Death... Absolution." Sure, it gets hard to tell tracks like "Mortuary Procession" from others like "Merciless Carnage," but this is their debut after all. Once they stop going for all-tech-all-the-time, they might work on adding some more songwriting smarts, and then they'll really be brutal. This is a great start in that direction.