Undying - The Whispered Lies of Angels (2000)Although it’s been some time since anyone has accused Between the Buried and Me of being a metalcore band, they certainly once were. You’d have to backtrack to The Silent Circus and their self-titled to really hear it, but even then, it’s disguised in so much prog and technical dazzle that it’s never more than a foundation laid and filled in on two previous projects: Prayer For Cleansing, and Undying. Dyed-in-the-wool metalcore bands, Prayer For Cleansing are an intriguing project in their own right, but both Tommy Rogers and Paul Waggoner, Between the Buried and Me’s longest-running and arguably best-known members, got their start in North Carolina’s Undying.
The band’s flagrant use of melody set them apart from the onset, but it’s got very little to do with the Gothenburgization of American metalcore Killswitch Engage ushered in. Although Killswitch were one of the first metalcore bands to openly embrace major chords and clean vocals in the context of vitriolic hardcore, Undying provide an alternative route that begins in the propulsive vein of Strongarm and strays close to Swedish guitar heroics without quite crossing the threshold into European worship. If there’s a Swedish band they do seem to reference, it’s more Dissection than At the Gates or In Flames. In fact, there’s a bit of a spiritual kinship between Undying and Dissection, as they’re both a little offbeat in relation to their respective music scenes--vocalist Timothy Roy’s frantic rasp sometimes even pushes Undying in the direction of the melodic black metal Dissection built their name on, although this seems more accidental than intended, evidence of a similar creative spark at work in a parallel medium. Don’t expect the hyper-technical bombardments of Waggoner’s later project or to hear Rogers sing or play keyboard: Waggoner sticks to the metalcore framework of big leads, shred riffs, and breakdown (although there is a refreshing lack of guitar chugging), and utilizes major chord progressions very frequently. Rogers, on bass, is less audible--more a consequence of limited technology thanks to the album’s DIY recording, but also an early sign that the age of the inaudible bass guitar was dawning in 2000. Even more so than in Between the Buried and Me, then, Waggoner is the dominant force in Undying, establishing the tone of the record from “Echoes” onward and guiding the listener along the cutting edge of melodic metalcore in the early '00s. Undying were both vegan and straight-edge, lifestyle choices that hardcore bands generally seem to have a hard time keeping to themselves. But you’d never know, as even a glance at the lyric sheet doesn’t give much away. Their worldview is cleverly submerged in the austere terminology of black metal and obscured by its sonic footprint, as in the following excerpt from “The Company of Storms”: when nighttime stars flicker with grief and despair and dusk threatens senses too dazed to stay clear their heavens will beckon, and angels will whisper my name wings of scarlet hue, their truth soaked in blood And what is that worldview? From the title of the album to a tracklist that includes such doomsaying as “Tears Seven Times Salt” and “The Coming Dark Age,” to their fusion of dramatic melodeath harmonies with brash hardcore sincerity, the band’s vegan/straight-edge beliefs form the basis for a very blunt artistic statement: through the poisoning of our bodies, our callous disregard for the natural world, and our insistence on using up rather than making do, we're destroying ourselves. The hidden track at the end of the album seems to reinforce the point: apart from being a great song in its own right, their cover of My Dying Bride’s “The Cry of Mankind” is a sort of philosophical exclamation point that's rather short on hope: I will make them all lie down Down where hope lies dying With lust, you're kicking mankind to death We live and die without hope You tramp us down in a river of death As I stand here now, my heart is black I don't want to die a lonely man It's performed in Undying's signature black-metal-meets-melodic-hardcore style, and excels: the original's lonesome keyboard is transmuted into a downright elegiac guitar melody, and the song's runtime is halved from twelve minutes to six, making it more digestible without sacrificing its eerie power. Although it lacks the fervor of earlier tracks, it's shocking how well the song's miserable tread fits the Undying sound (and vice versa). Through the prism of this song's epic condemnation, rather than the uplifting empowerment or anger of their contemporaries, the major chords and upbeat nature of The Whispered Lies of Angels take on fascinating new dimensions. Very few bands nailed this frills-and-all style of melodeath-inspired metalcore as well as Undying, and it's hard to say whether anyone ever quite managed to do it better. -Brian L.
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