FMA Reviews: Unburied: Murder 101

Originally reviewed here.

I like Obituary as much as the next metalhead. At least when they are doing something entertaining. Unfortunately at times, Obituary gets bogged down in a groove and refuses to let it go. The result is extremely tedious. At least having Ralph Santolla around to make things more interesting with a blazing guitar solo evens some of that out.

Now why in the hell did I open an Unburied album review with a discussion of Obituary? Because Unburied sound like Obituary. At their most ridiculously boring. That is not a good sign by the way. Imagine an entire album full of Obituary-stuck-in-a-groove with absolutely no release. Does not sound like much fun does it? After hearing this album I can attest that no, no it is not much fun. I happen to like death metal with a fair amount of groove (I love Jungle Rot), but Unburied really takes it way too far.

The real problem is the predictability. Unburied uses about one or two riffs per song and get stuck there. There are no guitar solos to add a little bit of color and the vocals are just the same grunt/growls all the way through. Once in awhile a sample from some movie or other will show up, but that is about it as far as interesting elements go. The rest of the album just sort of carries on with its grooving death metal riffs.

There is a lot of hardcore influence in the music as well. This does not bother me much, but neither does it really add anything to spice up the otherwise very ordinary proceedings.

This album is not really bad per se. It is just boring. And sometimes that is worse. I can listen to a bad album and be entertained by some of the bizarre attempts at creating something. And at least bad albums are often memorable for how bad they may be. When an album is boring, it quickly fades into obscurity.