BURIED, a death metal band from the Netherlands, has independently released their second full-length album, "Imagined Deformation." New Music Friday is always a jovial time for music journalists, as wave upon wave of new releases fall into our hands, and it just so happened that for me, this was one of the albums I encountered by leafing through recent Metallum additions.

Eight songs make up "Imagined Deformation," and we aptly begin with "Imagined Deformation." The first thing you're hit with is the insane technicality of the drums and guitars. Even in the melodic sections of the song, the instruments are lightning-fast. The gutturals are clean, if that makes any sense. There's no audible struggle or rasp in the vocals, which proves their quality. For a sub-four-minute track, the melodicism and technicality stick with you, and they're only expanded upon in the songs to come. "Inundation Beyond" makes me second-guess my comments about the drumming, as they're going so damn fast to the point where it's kind of annoying. I love technical death metal, but maybe not THAT much... The track also has some minor mixing issues, but they don't distract from the music. I'd say this song crosses the line into the realm of brutal death metal due to its dense composition."Psychogenic Excoration" starts fairly calm, but I'm naive if I thought the calmness would last the entire track. The ambient section ends at ~40 seconds, and the storm sets in again. The tornado of guitars sweeps you away, but it's not a comfortable ride when you're thrown around sporadically. "Psychogenic Exocration" is a definite standout song so far. The crashing cymbals warn you of "Visions in Black." Contrary to its beginning, BURIED uses this song to practice more melodic metal, and it works. From listening to the first half of the album, BURIED plays well, but sometimes a bit too much. I greatly prefer their more melodic songs.

"Collapse of the Fragile Mind" opens the LP's second half. By the riffs alone, I can tell I'm in for a chunky, bassy ride. This song could join the group of almost-obnoxiously-technical songs, but that doesn't mean I hate it. "Decades of Diagenisis" provides a snare tone to the equivalent of a throat-chop by Bruce Lee. Even though the vocals are getting a bit murky by now, this is not a noisome song by any means. I may start experiencing some "Auditory Hallucinations," because when you listen to the beginning of this song in a dark room, your neck hairs may stand up. This track is also the longest, barely crossing five minutes. Surprisingly, I'm able to groove with the beefy guitars, and I really enjoy these little moments, no matter how few or far between they are. "Imagined Deformation" finally comes to an end with "Dwellers of Perpetual Ruin." 

BURIED is an obviously talented death metal quartet, and every song on "Imagined Deformation" acts as an example. BURIED traverses through the dark depths of brutal death metal, but they tend to leave some melody intact. My one issue is that many tracks suffer from simply too much, well, everything. The drums are blast-beaten at such speeds that it becomes irksome. "Imagined Deformation" is a technically proficient, brutal death metal album, but most of its instrumentation is simply not to my taste.