A few summers ago, Buried In Verona released their second full-length album entitled Saturday Night Sever. I had no prior knowledge about Buried In Verona but as soon as I started playing that album, I was in love. I can’t put my finger on what exactly grabbed my attention, but Saturday Night Sever remained one of my favourite metalcore albums for quite a long time.
Buried In Verona is set to release their third full-length album on June 1st entitled Notorious. After they released a few singles off of the new album, my anticipation was increasingly growing. Thankfully, the day is finally here and the time has come to see if my expectations were reached.
The first thing I noticed is that Buried In Verona uses clean vocals much more frequently on Notorious than they did on either of their previous releases. The fifth track, “LionHeart”, is entirely clean vocals which makes it sound like an alternative rock type song. It seems a little bit out of place even if it’s meant to be an interlude, however, it is still a decent song.
Another thing that I was quick to pick up on is that Notorious is a bit more melodic than Saturday Night Sever or Circle The Dead. Tracks like “Miles Away”, “Can’t Let It Go” (which features guest vocals from Ahren Stringer of The Amity Affliction), “Perceptions”, “The Descent”, and “Ivory” display the more melodic side superbly. In addition to lots of melody, they feature catchy clean vocal choruses and good lyrics like “It’s loneliness that makes the loudest noise” (“Miles Away”), “You can’t run from your own reflection” (“The Descent”), and “A life worth living is a life you die for” (“Ivory”).
If you enjoy the heavier Buried In Verona songs more than the melodic, there are still a few of those to satisfy your needs. “Maybe Next Time”, “Couldn’t Give 34 Fucks”, and “Last Words” are most similar to the Saturday Night Sever days.
I do have a few bones to pick with Buried In Verona, though. First, while I do enjoy the vocalists style very much, he could make better use of his range. In particular, I would like to hear more usage of his lows as they are spectacular, and I’m sure that most fans would agree with me on that. Second, I think that they use too much inappropriate language (I’ll come back to that shortly) and it really takes away from a few songs.
Notorious is a good follow up to their 2010 release, but it does not top it. At times, Buried In Verona shows a lot of maturity, both musically and lyrically, but there are a few moments where they do the complete opposite and bombard you with profanities. In particular, “Couldn’t Give 34 Fucks” is a song that I would advise to not listen to while your elders are in your presence.
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