The feedback on the intro told me I was getting a guitar record, because as usual I knew nothing about this band before receiving the album. On my first listen through I wasn’t overly bothered about their punk infused metal, occasionally picking up on a cool lyric but essentially being pretty unmoved, but I had just listened to the excellent “Laborintus II” so this record was very much in the shade. On a second run through, Burning Love’s charm manifested itself much more clearly. Full bodied production and an appealingly growly vocal won me over and the refrain “Three days is a long time for a Catholic girl to die” grabbed my attention. “The bodies in the basement piling up” also caught my ear and I started paying more attention than usual to what was being sung which in turn dragged me into generally paying more attention to the record. Little features like the riff and breakdown on “Superstitious Friend” and the subtle depth of songs like “The Body” could well be missed if you’re not paying attention, and that would be to your detriment because Burning Love are a great band. There’s no technical excess or abstract experimentation, just a focused assault on your ears taking the energy of punk, some of the tics of hardcore and the epicicity (epicness ? epicosity ?) of metal and blending it all together into a delicious shout-y shake that very rarely exceeds 3 minutes. If you’re a fan of Converge, Alpinist or Retox then this is an album you should seek out and buy.

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Kim Monaghan

About Kim Monaghan

Kim is reviews editor here at Sitting Now, Overlord at http://daddytank.co.uk, and member of the shadowy League of Cat Fanciers: Birmingham division.

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