The Sins Of The Father

What Bury Tomorrow's The Sins Of The Father Actually Is

It's their second studio album, dropped in 2017 on Pure Play Music. Fourteen tracks, roughly forty-eight minutes of melodic death metal crossover. The band had already built a solid following with their debut Runes, but this record is where they stopped sounding like a good local act and started competing on an international stage. That distinction matters because the production choices here reflect a band that knew exactly where the genre was heading and decided to run toward it. The core sound sits somewhere between At The Gates and newer acts like Spiritbox. Matt Nicholls' drumming drives most of the rhythm sections rather than just keeping time, and Danny Worsnop's voice does everything from guttural lows to soaring clean choruses in the same breath. That vocal range is what separates this release from a lot of the mid-tier metalcore stuff that flooded the 2010s. It's not just technique though. The song structures avoid the verse-chorus-verse trap that kills most albums in this space.

The Sins Of The Father track listing and breakdown

The album opens with "The Heart Beneath," which sets the tone immediately. No slow build, no ambient intro fading in over two minutes. It hits you with aggressive instrumentation right away. Track three, "Avalanche," became the one most people know. It's got a melody that sticks around long after the album stops playing, which is harder to pull off than you'd think. "Bastard" and "Inhuman" lean harder into the death metal side, while "The Fall" and "The Great War" bring the post-hardcore emotion through. By the time you reach the closer "The Death of Me," the whole record has already made its argument about grief, legacy, and self-destruction. The lyrics aren't subtle but they're not filler either. I remember listening to this back when it came out and noticing something most reviewers missed. The guitar tones on the bridge sections are deliberately thinner than the verses. They pull back the gain and let the bass guitar carry more weight, which creates this hollow feeling right before the chorus explodes. It's a mixing choice that's easy to overlook on first listen but it's there on every major track. Most producers in this genre just push everything louder and thicker. Bury Tomorrow and their producer Andy Sneap chose restraint instead.

Where To Get It

The album is available on all major streaming platforms. Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music — it's all there. If you want to own a copy, the physical CD is still in print through Pure Play Music and typically ships within five to seven business days. Vinyl has been pressed periodically. The last I checked, there was a 2020 pressing that's widely available on Discogs for around twenty-five to thirty dollars depending on color variant. Digital download is available through Bandcamp at full price, which means you're supporting the band directly rather than splitting pennies with a streaming service. If you're looking for the bonus tracks, the Japanese edition includes two extras: a cover of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and a live version of "The Heart Beneath." The deluxe edition adds "The Death of Me (Acoustic)." None of these change how the core album lands but they're worth noting if you're building a complete collection.

What Makes This One Different From The Rest

Runes, their first album, was heavier in a generic sort of way. It followed the metalcore playbook closely and did it competently. The Sins Of The Father took that foundation and added progressive elements without becoming pretentious about it. The song lengths vary more. There are moments where the tempo shifts mid-section instead of transitioning into a completely new movement. "Avalanche" does this a few times and it never feels forced because the transitions are musically logical rather than mechanically placed. The counter-intuitive thing about this record is that its emotional impact comes from the quieter parts, not the heaviest ones. People tend to recommend starting with "Avalanche" or "Bastard" because those tracks are immediately punchy. But the album actually rewards you more if you sit with "The Great War" or "Inhuman" first. Those songs do more storytelling work and their arrangements reveal additional layers on repeated listens. I've had people tell me they didn't connect with the album until they heard "The Death of Me" on its own track, not as part of the full sequence. That track in particular benefits from being heard after the preceding fourteen minutes of rising tension across the rest of the album. There's also the matter of production maturity. Andy Sneap has worked with Cannibal Corpse and Megadeth. His approach here was to keep the mix transparent rather than crushed. The drums retain their natural attack. The vocals sit on top instead of being buried or pushed painfully forward. In a genre where loudness wars still kill a lot of records, that choice actually matters. You'll notice it most on headphones or a good stereo setup. On phone speakers it sounds fine but you lose some of the textural detail that makes the difference between this and something disposable.

One downside nobody talks about enough is that this album sits in an awkward middle ground for casual listeners. It's too heavy for people who only listen to mainstream rock. It's too melodic for die-hard death metal fans who want constant brutality. If you're looking for pure aggression, go to something like Suicide Silence or Infant Annihilator. If you want radio-friendly hooks, there are plenty of other options. This record exists for people who want both simultaneously and are willing to accept that neither extreme is maximized. That trade-off is intentional and it's what makes the album work as a complete piece rather than a collection of singles.