Hear It First: Clips from After the Burial's 'In Dreams' CD!

Guitar World is pleased to be premiering some of the most insane 8-string guitar passages from the new After the Burial CD, In Dreams, complete with commentary from guitarists Justin and Trent. The extreme metal five-piece from Minnesota will be touring as direct support for Winds of Plague throughout December. According to Fear Factory guitarist Dino Cazares, "After the Burial have perfected their unparalleled dual 8-string guitar craft and their sound is thicker than my last bowel movement. This is one of the most innovative metal bands around today." In Dreams is available now; for more information, visit myspace.com/aftertheburial. Listen to the clips, and check out the commentary from Justin and Trent below.

:00-:23 What we're doing here is something we've done on numerous songs in the past. In "Pendulum", a catchy solo melody over some diatonic chord picking on clean tone. It sort of sets a calming mood so that when the heavy guitars break in it sounds extremely crushing. :24-:45 This is the solo section from our track "To Carry You Away". It's a progression of ascending sweep arpeggios in the key of Eb minor. What's going on in the background are 6 and 7 string arpeggiated chords, Eb minor alternating with Bmaj7,9. Using the two approaches to playing arpeggios in this section really give it a larger, more soaring sound. :46-1:04 This is the introduction to "Promises Kept". Part of what inspired this particular section is the fact that we have never used acoustic guitar on any of our previous albums. It's something we've always wanted to do. We feel that the use of acoustic guitars here creates the dynamics necessary to convey the passionate meaning of the song. 1:05-1:30 What we have here is the very percussive mid-section of the song "Your Troubles Will Cease and Fortune Will Smile Upon You". The guitar, bass, and drums (especially) are the driving force of this part. They are all working together around the looping 16/4 rhythmic pattern. 1:31-1:51 The first lick here is one that breaks up two strongly melodic parts of a song called "Pendulum", both of which are in the key of Eb minor. It dabbles with some augmented and diminished shapes to freshen the listeners ears a bit before the heavy melody of the chorus riff comes in at 1:40. The chorus riff is built around the Eb minor sweep that introduces it in the beginning. The rest of the riff is constructed using diatonic note picking, adding some sus9's in there to make it more melodic sounding. 1:52-End This is the solo section from "My Frailty". It balls out dual guitar shredding that comes together in an epic harmonized sweep picking section. All to be wrapped up by a heavy outro riff full of guitar slides and pauses.