Chronoclast

Progressive rock and hardcore are two styles that no one involved in their original inception probably ever expected to see merge; and yet Canada's Buried Inside take part in an ever growing legion of bands (Mastodon, Isis, Pelican, Pushing Up Daisies, to name but a few) doing just that. Taking their basic cues from all of the above and, naturally, the daddies of it all, Neurosis, Buried Inside have concocted a single, uninterrupted 40-minute piece of music for their third album, 2005's Chronoclast. Consumed with the all-binding concept of time (as one might have guessed), its ten tracks were obviously devised as separate units to begin with, but are presented in such unified fashion here that it's almost impossible to sort them out without one's CD or computer player's assistance. Nor does one feel the need to — even with singer Nick Shaw's agonized screams making for generally unintelligible lyrics, since these too are cleverly matched to the music's escalating guitar lines, as they tighten and relax from track to track. In fact, needless to say, guitars are the main course here, but small doses of less typical instrumentation such as strings, pianos and even wind instruments crop up now and then to enrich the odd mellow passage. Buried Inside are less reliant on severe, jolting dynamic about-faces (read: hard/soft contrasts) as, say, Old Man Gloom, though, choosing instead to maximize tension and release with a more gradual ebb and flow throughout. The end result is a seamless, yet almost amorphous collage, which, for lack of more clear-cut punctuation, may prove a tad too challenging for some inexperienced listeners; but will likewise offer endless hours of discovery and appreciation for fans of this ever-more-popular metallic form.