The Facedown Records family continues to grow and impress. Hailing from South Bend, Indiana, the christian metalcore band called “The Burial” is set to unleash a plethora of progressive/technical tunes with the release of its second full-length album, Lights and Perfections. The Burial’s previous full length, The Winepress, was released in 2010 via Sacrosanct Records. In 2009, they released an EP called “Age of Deceit”. On their first two releases, they used a similar style that they showcase on Lights and Perfections, but not near as effectively. While the older songs are still pretty good, the new, more mature sound is much better and it continues to elevate my overall expectations for them.The Burial displays a fairly wide range of influences on Lights and Perfections. At times, they sound like The Black Dahlia Murder or As They Sleep, and at other times, they sound like a (progressive) metalcore band. However, if I were to draw only one comparison to The Burial, I would choose their label-mates, In the Midst of Lions, as a band that they are very similar to. The riffs and song structure reeks of In the Midst of Lions, but The Burial are not quite as heavy or use near as many breakdowns, and they are slightly more technical.When listening to Lights and Perfections, you can expect to hear soaring guitar solos in nearly every track, superb drumming, and solid vocals. Actually, the vocals are great, but they are somewhat monotonous. The vocalist, Elisha Mullins, rarely deviates from his mid-to-low vocal range, and if he added a bit more diversity (there is little to no use of highs), I think that would make Lights and Perfections even more appealing to the listener than it already is.In my opinion the best tracks on this album are Lights, Pearls; The Frailty Of Matter, Wisdom; The Gateway Of Liberty, and Perfections. Lights starts the album off with some melodic guitar leads which flows into a spectacular solo. After the intro solo ends, the guitar riffs, impressive drumming, and powerful vocals present themselves. Near the end of Lights, there is another solo, making this my personal favourite. Lights, Pearls; The Frailty Of Matter and Wisdom; The Gateway Of Liberty both feature more extraordinary riffs, solos, leads and drumming. The final track, Perfections, is a great song all the way through, but I particularly enjoyed the end of the song because of the use of an ambient outro.As expected and hoped for, The Burial has improved drastically since forming in 2005 and making their first release appearance on the metal scene in 2009. Their performance displayed on Lights and Perfections is nothing short of spectacular and I recommend it to anyone who likes melodic/technical deathcore. 
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