Bury Your Dead 'Beauty and the Breakdown' album

After selling over 80,000 albums with their last release, BYD are excitedly anticipating the reaction to their latest work. Pummeling, vivid, and fast, the new album will knock the wind out of you, and is also smart and tightly written.

Bury Your Dead hit the road immediately after their CD release party on July 11 in their hometown at the infamous Palladium in Worcester.

Then, the boys head out on a stint with the upcoming Strhess Tour with Shadows Fall, Poison the Well, Darkest Hour, and Still Remains. As a continuation of touring through the summer, BYD will hit the road with Family Values on 7/27; where, BYD will share the stage with Korn, Deftones, Stone Sour, and more! Rest assured, Bury Your Dead are notorious for bringing it live, and, being an Ozzfest alum, BYD will make sure "you mosh your brains out to [their] infectious breakdowns" all summer long!

Biography

The old saying goes, “If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger.” That adage certainly applies to Bury Your Dead.

The Massachusetts band, featuring drummer Mark Castillo, vocalist Mat Bruso, guitarists Slim and Eric Ellis, and bassist Bubble, have broken up, gotten back together, gone through 14 band members and 9 tour vehicles (including buckets of bolts like a Hyundai Accent and a Kia Sefia), but they’re still together and their stronger than ever on their new album, Beauty And The Breakdown, which is easily their most focused effort to date. In the Bury Your Dead tradition, the music is heavier than granite, but the band’s approach and collective attitude is light, fun and carefree. That’s what sets BYD apart from their peers, the fact that they do things you don’t expect. They keep you guessing at every turn, either making you bob your head to their catchy melodies or making you mosh your brains out to their ferocious, infectious breakdowns. As Slim says, “It’s always down and dirty, hustle and bustle with Bury Your Dead.” And that equals a damn good time.

While 2004’s Cover Your Tracks featured song titles named after Tom Cruise movies, Beauty And The Breakdown doesn’t name its song titles after Nicole Kidman movies, nor does it sound like its predecessor. Here, BYD named all their songs after fairytales, like “Mirror, Mirror,” “House Of Brick,” and “House Of Straw.” The album’s artwork is laid out like a storybook, as well. Despite having such light, fun titles, the music contained on the moshable Beauty And The Breakdown is pummeling, vivid, and fast, and it’ll knock the wind out of you. But it’s also smart and tightly written. “The drums sound like drums, and the guitar tone is ridiculous,” says drummer Mark Castillo, who founded the band with Slim. “Mat stepped up vocally and put everything he had into it.”

Bury Your Dead, who enjoyed a slot on the Ozzfest 2005 second stage and have headlined with Terror, and toured with labelmates Scars Of Tomorrow and Between The Buried And Me, and served as main support for Devildriver, recorded Beauty And The Breakdown at Audiohammer Studios in Florida, with Jason Suecof (Trivium, God Forbid) producing. “It was the most comfortable recording session I have ever had,” Castillo continues. “It was so easy. The record just came right out of us. We went in expecting to work it, and it just came naturally. It’s a lot heavier than our old stuff. It’s still Bury Your Dead, but we dropped down to make it heavier. We kept things a little more simple, because simple can be better.”

Guitarist Slim concurs, saying, “It’s evolved, too, and it’s almost like a grown up version of Bury Your Dead. On the last record, we wanted to keep it heavy because we didn’t know anything else, as far as writing songs. On this record, we wanted to keep it heavy, catchy, and fun. We take ourselves seriously, and we treated the band as a business but fun is also important.”

BYD also maintain that they don’t practice, instead choosing to let things flow naturally. “Me and Mark are like peanut butter and jelly,” Slim reveals. “We don’t need to lock into a practice space with a bottle of whiskey and make a thing, with details all hidden. We go into my parents’ living room, where he has electric drum set and I have a half stack, and we write and other members come in and contribute.” That organic method of playing with ideas and writing songs is another key factor of what makes BYD a little bit different and a whole lotta special.

Fun is an essential ingredient to the BYD sound, and they definitely strike the balance. “You can hear us having a good time,” Slim points out. “When kids come to see us, we’re having a good time. Our whole thing is what did Motley Crue do? A lot of people these days are paying their hard earned money that they saved up to see a show, and be entertained. We’re not Lord Of The Dance or the circus, but when you leave a Bury Your Dead show, you’ve never seen it done by a band like you see it done by us.” Indeed, if you’ve ever witnessed a BYD show, when they play the song of the same name, there are massive pile-ons on stage, with kids clamoring for a chance to scream “Bury your fuckin’ dead” with Bruso. “Having a good time is as important as the quality of the music, absolutely, 200 percent. I don’t care if I break my guitar or whatever,” Slim says.

Bury Your Dead: fusing fun and ferocity like no one else can. –Amy Sciarretto

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Tracklisting

Bury Your Dead - Beauty and the Breakdown