The Burning

Storm The Walls

Written by: PP on 26/12/2007 16:24:53

Having caught Denmark\'s The Burning live for the first time about a year ago and absolutely hated their show, my expectations for their debut album \"Storm The Walls\" weren\'t very high. What I remembered from the show was loud-as-fuck death metal that I, if I recall right, called generic at best. Not exactly the ideal mindset for an objective review, now is it? After listening to \"Storm The Walls\" for slightly longer, however, my opinion has changed, and I now deem The Burning as quite decent death metal, albeit very typical to the Danish metal scene.

What I\'ve come to understand about the Danish metal scene is that melody is shunned upon, and crushingly heavy riffs are preferred to the twin guitar harmonies most bands at our neighbors in Sweden have. The promotional sheet for The Burning agrees: \"No Swedish twin guitars, no clean sung choruses, no trendy haircuts... All fire\", giving you the gist of this album straight away. Although there are the occasional leads that catch your attention (see \"Fire\" and \"Weakling\"), most of the album focuses on making life miserable for anyone hungover or just in possession of a headache. The riffs are bone-crushingly heavy, and vocalist Johnny Haven\'s growls are coarse and long-stretched, leaving you worried about the constant strain on his vocal cords over the long run. And did I mention The Burning are loud? The volume is cranked up to the absolute maximum, consequently forcing especially Toby Hoest\'s great drumming through to your skull.

Overall though, The Burning doesn\'t leave a great impression. Most of the tracks kind of mesh together because they sound so much alike, it\'s as if the band focused so much on making their sound as heavy as possible that they forgot to write interesting songs in the process. When they deviate slightly from the riff-based formula, like in the previously mentioned \"Fire\", \"Weakling\" and in the album opener \"Underachievers Unite\", the band\'s songs are top notch in the death metal genre. At other times, however, they are distinctly mediocre, which is frustrating because the aforementioned songs really show that the band can write freaking good death metal songs if it wants to.

Download: Weakling, Fire, Underachievers Unite
For the fans of: Illdisposed, As We Fight
Listen: Myspace
Buy: iTunes

Release date 07.12.2007
Massacre Records
Provided by Target ApS

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