Today we are extremely excited to bring you the premiere of the debut album by Thunder Bay-based emo/screamo band Burial Etiquette! The album is called Mis-en-scène and features eight new tracks that dive deep into self-reflection, grief, buried trauma, and guilt with poetic lyrics full of gorgeous imagery. We caught up with the band to hear the stories behind the songs including the significance that the imagery holds in each track. Mis-en-scène is out evertwhere today (March 25) via Zegema Beach Records. Listen to the album and read the track-by-track breakdown below!
Mis-en-scène Track-By-Track Breakdown “Guilt You Hold (Safe & Sound)”
The first song written for Mis-en-scène all the way back in 2019. We wrote it with the intention of establishing the key pillars important to the rest of the album. Featuring dynamic highs & lows both lyrically & instrumentally along with atmospheric & layered DIY production, it was written with a three act structure and features vocal trade offs & intentional overlap / interrupting. We introduce guitar motifs in this song that will go on to be used throughout the rest of the album. The following material we wrote was the Coma Regalia split Held Tight In Fragile Embraces.
Esoteric Imagery:
Returning to an old familiar place & the resurfacing of buried guilt. The leaves are just starting to change colour and fall from the trees. Ashes falling from the sky are momentarily confused for snow. The distant smell of smoke unconsciously recalls your fragmented past.
”Mirrors For Eyes (Gentle Wings Create Tension)”
The prologue was originally just an interlude we played live to fill dead air in between songs. Then Tay improvised their vocal chant at a show one night and that was it. We excitedly restructured the song in the car ride home. Since the song revolves around being shaken from a deep slumber by a self reflective dream, it was only fitting that the intro felt dreamlike. The line “A glass wall of emerald ice” was inspired by the Emerald City from Wizard of Oz.
Esoteric Imagery:
Confronted in a dream. Large crystal mirrors hang over the eyes of an angel-like figure. Her mouth is sewn shut & her rigid posture portrays melancholy & regret. Above her towers a faceless wooden creature. A light that wasn’t there before catches your eye & you notice four silver strings emanating from the creature's grasp, binding the angel to a predetermined tormented fate. A broken marionette pleading for you to face past mistakes so they may no longer define you.
”Cracked Lens (Withdrawn In Wounding Ice)”
We were listening to a lot of emotional powerviolence like the first Hex Lariat album and Like Weeds by His Hero Is Gone. The clean epilogue was written to build anticipation & lead into the next track.
”For The Sake Of Comfort (Forsaken Reminiscence)
“You didn’t give it your all
But you wholeheartedly wanted to
And that's at least worth something
Your heart is filled with fault & mistrust
And so it aches brewing a poison
Engraving knots in your wrists
And spilling out your veins”
”Blue Orchids (Flowers For A Broken Machine)”
Taylor came into practice with this song fully written. We knew right away that we wanted to open side B with something completely different yet tonally consistent. Taylor nailed the recording in just a few short takes. This was definitely the song that came together the fastest. While other songs were constantly being rewritten and updated, “Blue Orchids” didn't change at all. There was nothing we could add or take away without getting in the way of Taylor’s hauntingly vulnerable performance.
”Dawn Break (The Clairvoyant Who Could Not Speak)”
We have seen through the clouds. We saw the dawn break & split us in two. Its light became a piercing lance. Impaling us in a golden embrace. A bereft moment of incandescence emanating warmth. Before splitting us in two.
”Ivy Staircase In Ruin (Everlasting)”
”Staircase” was released on Miss The Stars Charity Compilation X to raise money for an animal sanctuary in Germany. This song is a very important piece in the narrative for its depiction of our characters becoming self aware of the cycle of hurt that repeated listens of an album create. It lays the foundation to reinterpret previous lyrics in the album with a meta recontextualization of layered meaning. What may have seemed like a straight story between two characters and a narrator is recontextualized into a struggle against written fiction.
”Crestfallen (Valor)”
”Crestfallen” was written as a deconstructive amalgamation of motifs hinted at throughout the album. The narrative starts to break and collapse into itself.
”Valor” was written & recorded in one December night in 2021. At the time Tay & I were living in our jam space in a worn down building. Taylor’s final verse at the end brings the album to its thematic conclusion.