The Burning

Hail The Horde

Written by: PP on 10/11/2010 20:29:53

I've never been friends with The Burning's music in the past. To me, they've always represented the face of generic Danish Metal, that subtype of metal that can't really be re-classified into one subgenre or another, the one where generic brutality and ultra-heavy, live-sounding production reigns over common sense decisions in all stages of the writing and recording process. Both of their previous albums have been excercises in precisely what I just described, but it looks like I'm going to have to eat my own words when it comes to their new album "Hail The Horde". At least to some extent.

You see, The Burning have finally discovered the worth of a decent amount of melody in their (still very) typical Danish Metal sound. "Godless", the album opener, is nothing short of fantastic, with quick rhythm changes leading into approximately 100x more melody than ever before in their sound when it comes to the chorus. They've previously been hating the Gothenburg metal scene in their public statements, but given how At The Gates-esque that section is, they must have given in, and rightly so. This is exactly what they should be doing: injecting melodic thrash riffs into their tight-'n'-loud Danish metal sound. And in songs like "Flames Be Your Friend" and the title track, "Hail The Horde", this is precisely what's happening. Brutal for the sake of brutal has been toned down in favour of a more structured approach to songwriting, one where hardcore and At The Gates-sounding metal meet somewhere halfway in a part Thrash, part balls-to-the-walls metal sound. This benefits the band on almost every song of "Hail The Horde", because the songs just become that much more accessible to someone not a die-hard fan of the 'live' metal sound.

There are still some issues to be found especially towards the second half of the album, with few songs coming on par with "Godless" or "The Nihilist Life", and many referencing the band's older sound from the first two albums where they focused on being as loud as humanly possible. That said, there's little preventing me of calling "Hail The Horde" the best Burning album thus far. Lets hope they refine the excellent songwriting found on some of the songs I've mentioned on this review, if they're able to progress in that way and streamline their songwriting for an entire album's worth of "Godless"-esque tracks, we'll be landing in the top ratings at this site.

7

Download: Godless, The Nihilist Life, Hail The Horde
For the fans of: At The Gates, As We Fight, Pilgrimz, The New Low
Listen: Myspace

Release date 22.10.2010
Massacre Records

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