I must admit that I have never heard of Burn Unit prior to this demo. These guys are hailing from Fresno, California and this is their three song demo, short but sweet. Lyrics deal with gap between the expectations of others and real you, losing friends, betrayal, losing and gaining hope, so they are personal but done in a hardcore way, the way I love it for three decades now. Music is pretty brutal, mixture of hardcore with street punk roots and modern beatdown influenced hardcore. Song ‘False Self’ reminded me of European hardcore bands like Ryker’s, Right Direction and Backfire!, meaning all those nineties hardcore bands that I still love and much respect. Vocals are deep brutal but you can understand most of what is being sung about so that is another plus for this band. Besides punk roots, couple of metallic guitar work influences are more than obvious, especially in a song ‘Burn’, which reminded me of 25TaLife in some way, maybe it is just me, not vocally, only musically, having metallic verses, slower and thundering, and street punk chorus made for stage diving and singing along to. If you are into street wise hardcore, Burn Unit is the one to check out!

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