Post-modern melodrama encrusted within contemporary music has been all but dirtied, smeared in Mogwai-indebted reverberation, in Muse histrionics, wrung out to dry on wires of wry criticism. That's not to say that progressive midlands trio
To Bury A Ghost haven't ever curled up within concealed emotion to 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong, praying for the earth beneath their pedalboards to swallow them whole; they've merely managed to evade the bolshie, bottomless cavities of self-indulgence that've devoured many a vaguely credible act whole, reemerging occasionally to spit out a dour sophomore record. The Hurt Kingdom is all fairly apocalyptic, as primordial drum clamours are interwoven, oft entangled in incisive guitar lines that glide through the subconscious like scalpels through the fleshiest of tissue; the initial fanfares of Birthday that froth into violins drafted in from Hope Of The States' funeral are fairly monumental, before pristine ebonies and ivories cascade from a glockenspiel-gilded utopia. Darting between genre, above and beneath its branches like rabid beasts scurrying about purgatory, it's a fairly sanctimonious statement of intent. Emerging from a veil of static, the rigid, thudding bass of Coming up for Air stabs the fluttering wings of The Hurt Kingdom until immobile in pools of menacing gloom, whilst Jaws of Love is as harmoniously discordant as The Blood Brothers' disparate artistic direction. Beginning is The End reverts to woebegone six string barrenness, before erupting in orchestral majesty as if seen shattering through its intricately woven cocoon at the slowest of shutter speeds, and provides the irrevocable highlight of the EP, wholly instrumental throughout. For despite its partial reconstruction of a much-lambasted genre the vocals smothered over The Hurt Kingdom are all too asphyxiating, uncannily evocative of the operatic vocal chords of a certain Matt Bellamy, waning under the guise of imitation in place of innovation. Potential post-modern sovereigns? Perhaps...
