BURDEN OF GRIEF

Stalwarts of the melodic death metal scene since the mid-'90s, BURDEN OF GRIEF are still rolling at full pelt. Five years after the well-received "Eye Of The Storm", the Germans exhibit no great desire to mix things up and reinvent themselves. Instead, they continue to make music that echoes and expands upon the gleaming, ground-breaking sound of IN FLAMES and DARK TRANQUILLITY. Noticeably gnarlier and heavier than the melo-death average, BURDEN OF GRIEF have spent nearly 30 years becoming the best possible version of themselves, and "Destination Dystopia" plays out like an imperious lap of honor as a result.

Just as bands like SLIPKNOT, ARCH ENEMY and LAMB OF GOD have normalized brutality in the metal mainstream, so BURDEN OF GRIEF blur the lines between death metal's textural grotesquery and a smarter, sharper strain of modern metal that dares to be direct and accessible. Songs like "A Daydream Of Sorrow" and "Downfall" have such clear roots in the evil underground that the slick melodies that emerge from them are genuinely startling. Equally rooted in dark thrash, BURDEN OF GRIEF are manifestly uninterested in courting the pop-metalcore crowd and their ferocity as a unit is unquestionable. But as with their illustrious Swedish forebears, they seem unable to write a song without at least one giant, instantly memorable melody attached to it. "Fevered Dreams" is a death metal song in tooth and claw, but one with a chorus of tuneful, life-affirming hugeness; "The Devil's Bride" is a raucous, heavyweight sea shanty, predicated on a pendulous, swinging groove and peppered with schmaltzy lead breaks and frontman Mike Huhmann's obsidian rasp; the title track dispenses entirely with niceties, and goes for broke with a seething post-PANTERA assault, interspersed with classy bursts of gothic melancholy; "Fall Into Oblivion" is righteously furious and sounds a tiny bit like HEAVEN SHALL BURN at their bruising best.

BURDEN OF GRIEF never try to reinvent the wheel, but they still stamp their own identity on these big, brash songs. The closing "My Suicide" is the most extravagant piece on offer and a brilliant bit of songwriting. Mid-paced and avowedly downhearted, it employs lush crescendos and mellifluous instrumental sections to hammer home the simplest of melodic ideas, and this band's shrewd grasp of what it takes to make melodic death metal as potent as it deserves to be.

A refreshingly straightforward consignment of the good stuff, "Destination Dystopia" needs no gimmicks or guests to make its point. BURDEN OF GRIEF have played to their strengths and made their most compelling album yet.