Album Review

Like Throwdown, Killswitch Engage and fellow Connecticut troupe Hatebreed, Bury Your Dead goes straight for the jugular on Cover Your Tracks, a bloodcurdling exercise in death metal. Gore meets 'core front and center as guitars collide with a relentless bass drum thump on the band's Victory Records debut, as lead throat Mat Bruso gargles his way through bruising, maniacal funeral marches like "Eyes Wide Shut" and "Mission: Impossible." All of the song titles are nicked from Tom Cruise movies -- "Top Gun," "Losin' It" and "The Color of Money" are a few more -- but the emotional quotient is almost always grim, baring little resemblance to the aforementioned films. Most often, BYD takes aim at nay-sayers and greedy, promiscuous women with hate and vengeance on its collective mind. Cathartic as it may be, Cover Your Tracks is a joyless experience, but if this kind of threatening, disturbing musical presentation is your bag, BYD do it about as well as any of the aforementioned. ~ John D. Luerssen, Rovi