Formed in 2021, Burner are coming from South London and this is their sophomore opus, coming three years after the debut album. This one contains eleven songs of mayhem, all out war attack on your ears and other senses and making you move across the room while listening to this one. Burner play brutal metallic hardcore with lots of breakdowns, moshing parts, some fast parts and sometimes death metal influenced song structures. But, there are some subtle hooks and melodies here and there thrown in for good measure. On the album there are some prominent guests being Josh Middleton of Sylosis and Matt Heafy of Trivium, also Anthony Lucero from Cult Leader. Vocals are mixture of almost death metal growling and screaming with some hardcore shouting too, courtesy of singer Harry Nott. Some of the lyrics are personal, but they also deal with ecology, war and similar merry themes. The whole vibe of the album is very energetic but also somewhat apocalyptic and bleak vision of the human current state and future if we continue in the same way. My personal favorites on this one are: Sunset Parabellum, apocalyptic longer opener The Third Revelation and My Hands Become Weapons. This is a great album, so go check this one out!
Category Archives: Reviews
(review) Iskald – Curse Of The Mind
Time for some more Norwegian black metal to grace the pages of this zine. Iskald were formed in 2005 and this is their sixth full length opus. What do we have here? There are eight songs on this one being divided into four invocations, namely invocations I, II, III and Final invocation. The music is melodic black metal, but more technical and well played, almost kinda reminding me of later days Emperor. There are lots of atmospheric keyboard and some acoustic song parts, tempo changes and enough melody and aggression to remind us why we love black metal so much as an expression of emotions and aggression at the same time, channeling your inner darkness. Lyrics are in English and are of more personal nature, dealing with battling your inner and outer demons, hope, loss and depression, as far as I understood them like that. This is not your typical in your face raw black metal, although it has some blast beat parts, this is finer goods. Vocals are black metal screaming but not theatrical or bordering with parody, but serious business fitting perfectly to the song structures. My personal favorites: A Burden Of Hope, The Sacrifice. Go check this one if you are into smartly written and played black metal.
8/10
(review) Pain Of Truth – Pain Of Truth
Pain Of Truth are hailing from Long Island, New York and were formed in 2020. This is their second full length album containing eleven songs. The music of Pain Of Truth is, what we called back in the nineties, new school hardcore. That means brutal metallic hardcore with street smart undertones. Here we have double bass pedals if I hear it right, angry shouted vocals which at times wander into a bit melodic parts and backing gang vocals, crushing beatdowns and breakdowns, just made for moshing at the gigs. Musicianship is very tight and production is raw and I love it, because it fits perfectly to this kind of music. This is not unsimilar to the godfathers of this hardcore genre, like Earth Crisis or Snapcase did, only more brutal and harsh, energy just streaming from songs on this release. Lyrics are personal, dealing with lies, trust, hatred, fear, personal demons and unfortunately or fortunately I can relate to them. This music and this record made me feeling better, so I can say that is the meaning of hardcore, to let you know that you are not alone in this. My personal favorites on this one are: Done For, Unforgiven and Destroy It All. As young hardcore kid, I didn’t like bands like this, because I come from more fast, punkrock background, but now at my fifties I enjoy them very much. Good one, pick this one!


