Album Review: Burial- Rival Dealer

On Wednesday morning, by the time I was up, finished with all of my desperate househusband morning chores, and finally got around to sitting down to check the news (aka Pitchfork), sipping my coffee, watching my rabbits eat their post-breakfast hay—well by this point, the Internet had pretty much already started shitting itself over the new Burial EP.

Cut to less than two weeks before that, and this EP, Rival Dealer, was just announced, and other than a release date of the 16^th, little else was known other than it was roughly a half-hour of music spread across three tracks.

Fact was the first site to have an in-depth analysis of Rival Dealer—dubbing it a“Christmas story about love, confusion, and sexuality.” And while it was well written, and to an extent, I see where writer Tom Lea was coming from, but as a whole, that piece had me all...

The truth of Rival Dealer is that it is yet another defiant work from an artist who continues to work within shadows. Operating anonymously in 2006, he released his self-titled debut, thus introducing the world to what is now known as “dubstep.” Only it wasn’t always bass drops, wobbles, and Skrillex—it used to be much more pure than that. One upping himself with his second (and to date, last) full length, Untrue, Burial has since been “outed” as a man named Will Bevan, and that he may or may not have been a classmate of likeminded producer Four Tet.

After a few years of relative silence, save for some one-off collaborative works, he returned in 2011 with the Street Halo EP. This served as an introduction to the “new” sound of Burial—post-everything. Post-album Post-song. Post-genre. There is really no clear way to define what Burial does to someone who is not familiar with his work. And since Street Halo, he’s been writing “pieces” rather than “songs.” With each subsequent release, their complexity and length only continues to grow—each piece, being broken into very distinct movements.

Rival Dealer contains some of his most complex work to date. And for an artist that has attempted to remain anonymous, it feels weird to say that it’s his most personal music to date, but it is.

There are very typical “Burial” sounds on Rival Dealer—specifically samples of endless drizzle, and the vinyl cracks and pops that he has used on pretty much every thing he’s ever done, as well as his emphasis on disembodied, pitch-shifted, auto-tuned vocals—removed for their original context and placed within his own new world.

Rival Dealer, while self-referential, as well as featuring slight callbacks to previous pieces from earlier releases, actually saves its strongest work for last, in a sense then working towards something much larger than itself. The title track opens up the EP, and it’s the most aggressive and frenetic thing that he’s ever done—loud, abrasive squalls leading the way through incredibly fast-paced, jungle style beats.

But that’s just in the first movement.

The second movement is marked by scuzzy, electrified sounds while a slightly less chaotic beat plays behind it—I imagine that this is what it’s like to be electrocuted if you are in a dance club and have just taken a ton of drugs right before your electrocution.

But wait there’s more—the third movement foregoes all of that, bringing in a bunch of distorted, haunting vocal samples, cascading across some incredible somber piano strains, ending with the repeated line, “come down to us,” serving as a hint of things to come.

Keep in mind, all of this happens within ten minutes—“Rival Dealer” is the most demanding Burial has ever been.

Splitting the EP in half is a shorter piece, “Hiders.” Burial has hinted at more “straightforward” synth-based leanings in the past, but never has he been so direct. Like a 1980s power ballad drunk on Lean, “Hiders” creates an unsettling beauty like nothing I have ever heard. And when the drums come in? It’s such a self-aware, shit-eating grin-producing moment. I mean, you want to laugh at the “cheese” factor of how it sounds, but you can’t. It’s just that powerful.

The final piece on Rival Dealer, “Come Down to Us,” is by far the EP’s most life-affirming track. The first movement sound as is if it is on the cusp of being triumphant—possibly a sitar (?) glitters with heavily fractured synths swirls, along his trademark use of broken-down and decaying vocal samples, lifted from pop and R&B songs, create a strange comforting, reassuring warmth—a similar feeling was conjured on 2011’s “Stolen Dog.”

The second movement of the piece is by far the most impressive feat on the EP.

Starting at around 7 minutes in, “Come Down to Us,” becomes that very decaying R&B song—complete with twinkling, airy keyboards and 1980’s Top 40-ready drum machine beats. If it was on the cusp of triumph before, it’s pushed overboard now—you will probably not find a more emotionally powerful and moving moment in music in 2013 than this. When you hear it, you want to cry but you’re not sure if it’s because you are so elated, or if it’s because you are consumed by an awful emptiness. It’s like the first time you’re hearing your new favorite song, coming through on a broken old radio, broadcast from another world.

The theme of identity runs through Rival Dealers—really marking the first time Burial has had an overarching concept throughout a whole EP. Much has already been made of this fact—specifically the usage of a portion of Lana Wachowski’s speech on being a transgendered individual, a sample that arrives at the very end of “Come Down to Us.”

And it’s this theme of identity that seemingly makes this Burial’s most personal collection of songs, or at least, this is the first time that it’s been alarmingly obvious that he’s trying to tell us something—that there is a message, or a code, if you will, found within these three pieces.

Just exactly what this message is though is up for discussion.

The idea of belonging, and the idea of love have become more and more present in his latter day output—there was the haunted voice singing “You’re a part of me,” on this remix/deconstruction of Massive Attack’s “Paradise Circus,” as well as the very voice on last year’s “Kindred,” telling you that “Baby, you earned the love.”

Within this very clear theme of identity, there is a very thick layer of confusion, and a layer of self-doubt. But by the end, there is a resolve, and a feeling of hope. It’s a strange, emotional journey, almost effortlessly created by an absolute master at his craft.

On one of the numerous times through Rival Dealer, I made a list of some of the the discernible vocal samples—I’m gonna love you more than anyone; This is who I am—(used right before the drums kick in on “Rival Dealer,” an incredible trick); And to me, this is what I’m about; Sometimes you are trying to find yourself; You know my motherfucking style (clearly Ol’ Dirty Bastard, used to lighten the mood); Excuse me I’m lost; Who are you? Why did you come to me?; Don’t be afraid to step into the unknown;  This is the moment when you’ll see who you are; There’s no one like you; What you never do is give up; and most importantly: You are not alone.

What is Burial trying to say with all of this? Specifically with the usage of Lana Wachowski’s speech at the end of “Come Down to Us.” Is Burial Lana Wachowski? No. Probably not. Is Burial a transgendered individual? Maybe? But also, probably not. Is Burial using this as a method of saying that you shouldn’t be afraid of being different?

More than likely, yes.

It’s about acceptance—accepting others for who they are, as well as being true to yourself. It’s about finding the love within yourself, and finding the love for others.

It’s a huge gamble, hiding such a positive message like that within such dark and claustrophobic music, but it works. The payoff by the end of the EP is astounding.

The word among Internet fanboys is that Burial pulls stunts like this—releasing a breathtaking new effort within the final month of the year—as a giant middle finger to critics who make their “Best Of” lists in November. Whether that is true or not, Rival Dealer has me re-thinking my entire 2013, musically speaking; specifically my favorite songs of the year. Hyperbole aside, “Come Down to Us,” is seriously capable of doing things to you that I didn’t think was possible with music.

Burial is an artist that continues to grow by leaps and bounds with each statement he makes. Rival Dealer is by far, his biggest and most impressive, and possibly most important work to date.

Rival Dealer is available digitally right now, via Hyperdub, and will be available Monday on LP and CD.