After the Burial at the Gramercy Theatre

Anthony Notarmaso

Guitarists Trent Hafdahl and Justin Lowe met in high school in Twin Cities, Minnesota. They founded After the Burial in 2004 and posted an ad on a local hardcore message board. Bassist Lerichard "Lee" Foral responded and joined the progressive metal and "djent" band. The band has experienced two vocalist changes and two drummer changes and presently includes vocalist Anthony Notarmaso and drummer Dan Carle. After the Burial's fourth and most recent album, Wolves Within, was released on December 17, 2013.

After the Burial built up a following with its first two albums, but slickened its music for a broader audience with its third album, turning off many of the band's original fans. Perhaps in regret, the band reissued its older music while working on its return-to-basics fourth album. At the Gramercy Theatre tonight, After the Burial succeeded in blending tracks from the four albums into one sound. Amid flashing back lights blinding the fans in front, the band launched its set with "A Wolf Amongst Ravens," the closing track from the new album. Between harsh vocal verses, Notarmaso calmly surveyed the audience, as the band played a down-tuned mid-tempo groove leading to a high-end guitar lead. This was brutal metallic djent. An older song, "Cursing Akhenaten," then revived the band's former breakdown-laden percussion-thrashing machine gun style. By the third song, "My Frailty," both the musicians and the audience were bouncing high to the rhythms. There were accessible melodic lines, djenty grooves, searing chugs, patchwork riffs, coarse breakdowns, breakneck guitar solos and gruff vocals. After the Burial were experts in cohesive metalcore and grindcore.

Visit After the Burial at www.aftertheburial.net.