The Burning

Rewakening

Written by: TL on 02/03/2009 13:45:07

The first thought that crossed my mind when "Rewakening", the second LP from my countrymen in The Burning landed in my lap was that their album art was damn cool. That's unfortunately just about the last positive thing I have to say about it. The Burning play boring, run of the mill metallic hardcore with only the slightest of hints of death, thrash and Pantera mixed in as an attempt of creating a discernible identity for the band. They pretty much spell out their own downfall in their description on Last.fm, so I'm going to allow their own words to speak against them;

THE BURNING goes against the grain drawing more on inspiration from the modern masters like PANTERA, SEPULTURA and SLAYER and focusing more on straight up aggression and the monothematic power of the huge pulverizing groove.

No Swedish twin guitars here, as THE BURNING instead utilizes the downtuned attack of only one guitar. Crushingly heavy back to basics drums and a thick distorded bass-sound equally intent on adding layers of melody and maximizing density on every single note to ensure that THE BURNING sound heavier than most twin guitar bands in todays metal scene.

The key phrase to notice is where they claim to be focused on "the monothematic power of the huge pulverizing groove". That may sound cool, but think about what that entices for a second. There's simply nothing else than the low tuned battering of a single guitar and the angry yelling/growling of a mediocre vocalist in play here, and given how cliché the themes of war and anti-religion are and how similar every single song is, it's easy to overlook where the lasting impression is going to come from.

Like a million billion other pretentious hardcore acts out there, The Burning try to explain by claiming to be "heavier than most twin guitar bands in today's metal scene". Whoop-de-fuckin'-doo, I think I know somebody who need to write AB or EW an email so that they may be directed towards some music that is actually heavy, because this chugga-chugga fest has been done much heavier, even within the boundaries of the deathcore scene, just see The Acacia Strain.

To quickly sum up, The Burning embody most of the things I can't stand about the hardcore scene. Their music is simple, one-dimensional and as stereotypical as can be, and they even seem to take pride in this. I'm sure there's a scene full of br00tal dudes out there who think that sounds totally awesome, but I'm also sure that those dudes can find some other marginal and largely subjective zine to tell them what they want to hear. I'm not wasting another second of my time on this. Next.

4

Download: Carnivora, Unspeakable
For The Fans Of: Hatesphere, Ektomorf, Devildriver
Listen: myspace.com/theburningdk

Release Date: 27.02.2009
Massacre Records

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