BURIAL TREE

Burial Tree is the brainchild of Monte Cimino, an artist from the Bay Area, and formed back in 2009, but with ideas spawning out during the pandemic, he's decided to take this fresh batch of compositions and revive the band. Armed with 3 new songs, all epic in length, “The Power of Myth" was created, and will satisfy anyone's thirst for heavy post-rock/metal that’s tinged with experimental ambient notes.

It’s a mesmerising album, that has a cacophony of clatters and crashes, jingles and jangles, as the album looks at "society's disarray and disillusion". It begins with "Sigils". The element of surprise is constantly there, as the sounds meander around your brain at will. Accompanied by bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Adam McClure, I'm not sure where the composed sections begin and the improvised sections end. They are so intertwined into the musical landscape and are both powerful and all-consuming in their approach to what is happening around them.

With the god like genius that is Dave Lombardo joining them on the second track "Veve" this has a slightly more sinister aura with the electronic soundscape in the background. Your head won't know which way to turn, as it goes from evil to this huge, bellowing noise being created and then you are confronted by saxophonist Peter Apfelbaum, who takes the song to another level of depravity. It settles, and flows beautifully after this, with the energy being palpable, and yet you are still only halfway through the song!!!

With elements of jazz, rock and sludge being improvised, Cimino has set no limits or boundaries to the music, and the experiment is audible to all. As I've stated above, this isn't an easy listen, as you are on edge, and you wonder what is going to happen next, but that is majorly appealing to me. With the album title track bringing up the rear, "The Power of Myth" is a 15-minute look into the minds of Cimino and Laswell, as they take bass and effects to new levels, manipulating and enhancing the audio, to add more depth and texture.

It's a slow build up, like you are stepping into a fog induced world, with noises swirling all around, as you fight to stay on your chosen path. But this takes an unexpected turn, as it doesn't alter or deviate much from the sedentary pace that they've chosen. It gets a bit more psychedelic in parts and about two thirds of the way through, you get a new set of landscapes added to enrich the atmosphere. By the end, you'll sit back and wonder WTF was that all about, and then press play again to find out more.

Matthew Williams (courtesy of the The Razor's Edge website)

Some records creep into the room like an omen. The Power of Myth, the latest resurrection of Monte Cimino's Burial Tree, doesn't wait for permission — it coils around you, slow and deliberate, until you're breathing in its smoke. Across three sprawling pieces, it fuses heavy post-rock, free jazz chaos, and sludge-drenched weight into a sound that feels at once ancient, cinematic, and slightly dangerous.

Cimino has always had a knack for gathering the right conspirators, but this time the roster borders on mythical itself. Bass icon Bill Laswell brings his inimitable low-end gravitas; Peter Apfelbaum's avant-garde saxophone howls like it’s been summoned from the wrong side of the veil; Adam McClure drives the beat with a jazz-meets-hardcore pulse; and then there's Dave Lombardo — yes, that Dave Lombardo — delivering percussive assaults and strange electronic murmurs that would make even the most jaded metalhead's hair stand on end.

"Sigils" opens the record like a dark ritual. It's sprawling, cinematic, and slow-burning — the kind of piece that could score a film about gods clawing their way back into the modern world. There's no rush here; instead, riffs emerge from shadow and dissolve into ambient haze, drawing you into an altered state before you even realize it's happening.

"Veve" is where things truly get strange — and glorious. The drum track is pure Bay Area metal swagger, but buried under something far sludgier, more sinister... as if it's sliding, slowly, inexorably, straight into Hell. Apfelbaum's saxophone isn’t a mere embellishment; it's an unhinged character of its own, creeping, shrieking, and bending the song into terrifying beauty. There's a hallucinatory quality here — changes in pace, textures unraveling, shadows stretching — that makes it perfect for headphone isolation or, for those inclined, a smoke-fueled journey through your own headspace.

The title track stretches to fifteen minutes and abandons rhythm altogether. It opens with desert-wind soundscapes that drift for nearly the length of an entire conventional song before the bass swells in. It’s a drone, a trance, a slow ride on a flying black bus through the Sixties' darkest countercultural backroads — the kind where Charles Manson's ghost might just lean over and start explaining the cosmos to you. There’s no verse-chorus safety net, just a steadily deepening mind trip that rewards surrender.

Taken as a whole, The Power of Myth is less an album than an experience — a patient, immersive headspace built from players who've spent lifetimes pushing the boundaries of genre. It’s the soundtrack for society’s unraveling, for dreamers who prefer the shadows, for artists who understand that beauty and dread are often two sides of the same coin.

Christine Greyson (courtesy of the Elevar Music Magazine website)