Bury Tomorrow: Celestial Veneration
When we look at the full embodiment of a life, we often find ourselves looking at numbers. Age, height, weight, National Insurance, bank balance, they all sit among the code which we are compiled of. Though it isn’t just these arbitrary figures which open new doors for us in the grand scheme of this thing called life. Whether many of us want to believe it or not, we all share a destiny number and buy into the mystery of that figure. That is the number seven.
Our world was created within seven days according to the Christian Bible. In Ancient Egypt, Osiris walked his father through the seven halls of the underworld. The Roman cult of Mithras believed the soul ascended to paradise through seven planetary spheres akin to the Christian concept of seven layers of purgatory. Within the musical realm there are seven distinct notes on the scale. The number seven determines the stage of female life in China; a girl will grow her milk teeth at seven months, lose them at seven years, reach puberty at 14, and menopause at 49. According to the practice of Numerology, seven is the number of deep spiritual insight, wisdom, and inner strength.
No band exudes those things more than BURY TOMORROW. With the cycle of The Seventh Sun dawning on the horizon, vocalist Dani Winter-Bates pauses for a moment when we ask what fans can expect from the latest offering. “Usually when you’re asked to describe your album, it’s really easy to kind of draw parallels to the previous stuff that you’ve done, especially a band that’s like us.” He offers. This is BURY TOMORROW’s seventh album and they have certainly cemented themselves as the darlings of British metalcore. “It feels almost very new – and I mean that in many ways – both in renewed attitude and ethos behind why we’re here and why we do what we do, but equally a renewed musical and sonic sense as well.” Dani articulates.
The renewal Dani refers to isn’t by coincidence. There is a hint towards BURY TOMORROW not surviving the pandemic.” The band became not a fun place to be,” guitarist Kristan Dawson confesses. “We got so set in our ways as people that it would be reflected musically.” It becomes clear this is a band who feel they had been doing metalcore by numbers for past album cycles and were desperate for change. With the departure of Jason Cameron and the recruitment of Ed Hartwell [guitars] and Tom Prendergast [vocals/keys], BURY TOMORROW was given a new lease on life. The result of that comes in the form of the band’s most freeing album as Kritstan adds; “I feel like we’ve finally scrapped the blueprint.”
Standalone singles LIFE (Paradise Denied) and DEATH (Even Colder) gave fans the first taste of the blueprint hitting the cold steel of the waste paper basket. Creating a home studio set up in his home, Dani felt inspiration come back to him, prompting him to work on material long before he had to. For the first time in a while, the vocalist felt trepidation before DEATH (Even Colder) hit listeners’ ears. Now, Dani takes part in the one-take vocal performance trend on TikTok and we became privy to Dani’s coming into his own, a transcendence many had been waiting for.
BURY TOMORROW’s rebirth didn’t stop at a lineup change. As Tom and Ed were brought into the fold, the band were introduced to new ways of writing. This results in arguably BURY TOMORROW’s best work. “The way Tom writes melodies compliments Dan’s creative process in regard to lyrics and concepts,” Kristan muses. “How Ed writes riffs inspired me to get out of my comfort zone and get back to what I enjoy about being in a metal band – which was riffing.” A return to an enjoyment as base as that unshackled BURY TOMORROW and let them approach the album completely anew.
Kristan brands The Seventh Sun as BURY TOMORROW’s most thoughtful album and that reflects further in the topic of the title. As Dani vocalises his fascination with cyclical patterns in life, he also compares it to the life of a band in terms of evolution. “The original catchline was going to be The Children Of The Seventh Sun and that pertains to us, our fans, our community going around again.” he starts. “This is a very significant cycle for us; this is the moment where we can really change our direction. Similarly, The Black Flame was our community during that time – The Children Of The Seventh Sun is our new community. Together.”
From this, it isn’t only BURY TOMORROW who will benefit from this rejuvenation. Where the band had their own struggles, as we mentioned, so did the fans. The physical and mental effects of living through a global pandemic are still being reported on. Through his day job with the NHS, Dani strongly advocates for mental health and candidly shares his own struggles. “A major theme of this is the chaos of the world we live in and dealing with that,” he remarks. “It’s not a nice place to live in a lot of the situations we’re presented with but we can do that together. We have strength together.”
The Seventh Sun showcases that strength in stunning fashion. Across the 11 tracks, we are exposed to a wonderful sense of urgency the likes of which BURY TOMORROW has never shown before. Wrath’s “I’m sick and tired of waiting for my time to run out” connects to the brutal impatience many of us house when we reach the precipice of a mental health break. Forced Divide’s lusciously dense guitars hit like a strike to the solar plexus when combined with the line “I crave all I can never have”. But where does this ferocity come from? As Dani explains, it’s the culmination of years of work finally feeding into the band’s self confidence. “For years BURY TOMORROW has been classified as an underdog as we’ve quite happily waved that flag.” He takes a moment’s pause before continuing, “How dare we say we’re an underdog when we were able to continue after a pandemic when so many other bands couldn’t. The urgency comes from our acceptance of where we are and our moral obligation to the fans for us to stand proud as a major force in the metal industry.”
In the run up to release day, The Seventh Sun has presented itself as a slab of heavy artistry. Aggression drives Abandon Us. Boltcutter sits firmly in the venom gland of the inland tapian. Then where Heretic’s death metal influence seeps through “the death of the light”, recent single Begin Again’s synths slink through the midsection of a track which forces us to be the master of our own destiny. They all present themselves as sonic heavyweights. So mid-point Majesty will come as a surprise to many. “I can’t believe how many people want to talk about this song,” Kristan beams before telling us friendship with Tom began at 14 years old. The pair started writing music together during lockdown, before any lineup changes took place, and simple noodling on an acoustic guitar would transform into Majesty. “It’s a love letter to this really weird period in life where nothing really felt great,” the guitarist comments, “It wrestles with a theme of the acceptance of things you can’t change. Like COVID for example.”
Acceptance flows through The Seventh Sun as it does the veins of BURY TOMORROW. From external situations to our internal being, the soul’s journey through life is the willingness to either circle the drain or begin again. It’s one thing to fully accept your character but an altogether different beast to bare all to the world. Dani does just this with The Carcass King. Slower buzzing melodies bloom into a molten sharpness which goes straight for the jugular. The “Carcass King, God of nothing” isn’t a fictional character hiding within the pages of a fairy tale. Nor does he haunt the dreams of children. He sits on the other end of a Zoom call in the form of Dani Winter-Bates.
Self-personification isn’t new as Viper goes to show. A shy smile appears before Dani dives into the track. “It’s me throwing myself on the proverbial sword to say ‘yeah I am that, but I’m so much more and I am better than that.” As mentioned previously, Dani uses his social media as a platform to talk about his own battles, primarily with body dysmorphia, promoting his pages as a safe space for all. “Darkness isn’t necessarily the worst place to be because it gives you a different perspective on life,” comes from a place of having known the proverbial bleakness. Featuring Cody Frost, The Carcass King had BURY TOMORROW push the envelope of what they could do sonically. As a result, Dani removed a verse of him screaming and replaced it with an emotional delivery from Frost where her vocals melt beautifully into a harmony from Prendergast. “I’m so proud of that song,” Dani smiles. “There isn’t a BURY TOMORROW track like it and it’s wonderful we were able to open the album with a riff from Ed and close with one of Tom’s.”
With a new path forged for BURY TOMORROW, all that’s left now is to watch the dawn of The Seventh Sun break the horizon. Silence may rule the last few moments but the first breath of this new age will usher in a savagery which finally removes the underdog shackles.
The Seventh Sun is out now via Music For Nations.
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