ALBUM REVIEW: Fury – Upon A Burning Body
After releasing five records through the 2010s, starting with The World Is Ours in 2010 all the way up to Southern Hostility in 2019, UPON A BURNING BODY are back with their first full-length release of the decade. Their sixth full-length album Fury is something of a hybrid between the first two chapters of their career, but the balance they achieve between them does feel somewhat safe and routine.
On 2019’s Southern Hostility, some of the heaviness was taken out of their sound and replaced with groove. Fury aims to achieve a middle ground between the two sounds, their earlier and more immediate years combined with a stronger sense of groove. Now with a sound that everyone who’s ever heard LAMB OF GOD will feel at home in, there are some pockets of success here. The opening four tracks of the record come out of the gate fast with the 2000s metalcore giving way to thrash riffs and pacing. Shapeshifter switches this up by introducing a mathy stop and start riff, bringing the most dynamics of any track on here by far.
The first half of Fury is sure to sit well with groove metal fans; there are some guitar solos early on and the breakdowns never go full metal or deathcore, they just strip the layers back a little to give the guitars room to breathe. In fact, the groove is the dominating sound here, it’s mixed in with some other styles but they don’t get enough time or stuff to do to really impact the album. That’s where the second half of the record gets a bit all mashed up into one concept. The momentum of the first few tracks does slow down after that initial run because the following songs just can’t recapture that straight out the gate energy. Clean vocals become a bigger player as the album goes on and they vary from feeling a bit forced into tracks to just not hitting home.
In concept, the idea of taking the two defining sounds of UPON A BURNING BODY’s career and finding that perfect balance between them is a no brainer. On the groove metal side of the equation, there’s definitely some fun to be had, though the songwriting is never impactful or grabbing enough to leave a real indent and have you coming back to scratch that itch. As for the metalcore elements, it shares some tendencies with the bands that have come before them and merged genres, but there’s not a whole lot to write home about, it massively plays second fiddle to the groovier tracks. Fury kicks off with some good but never great moments and from that point on it is a question of diminishing returns.
Rating: 5/10
Fury is set for release on May 6th via Seek & Strike.
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