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iBURN Album REVIEW |
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01.
HAVE MYSELF AGAIN
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A thousand elephants rumble over the horizon, the ground shakes violently as iBurn drowned out the large mammal's pathetic effort to get noticed. The crushing riffs of bass heavy, downtuned metal combines with the tuneful singing, gravely roars and a sprinkling of rap influence. Reminiscent of a stripped down and re-energised Korn and carrying a pronounced signature from producer Kallaghan (Sikh), anyone listening to this band had better get themselves firmly strapped in. With very little appetite to take prisoners, iBurn prefer to bludgeon their way into your minds with aggressive passages of earth trembling metal. Throughout the album there are well written and often quite poignant lyrics, covering congruous subjects that reflect the environment many of us may have grown up in. As stated it’s heavy and aggressive but with a groove that will have most involuntarily dancing, especially in a live environment. Personal favourite “Rotting My Body’s Strength” demonstrates this excellently, ripping your head clean from your body while nodding it vigorously to the rhythm. It reminds you just why this genre is so popular. This Dublin based band actually recorded the album in France at the end of 2008 and it's very well presented with a quality digi-pack layout and an enclosed booklet, but for various reasons it’s taken until now to get released (and during which time the band is well on the way to completing their second album entitled i.2). Now, some may claim this is a style of metal more at home in the late 90’s but that would be lavishly unfair, as although this recording may not be particularly groundbreaking, it’s definitely reinvigorated, agitating, entitled to a place in today’s scene and is as relevant as ever. It’ll be very interesting to see what they try with album two!
Dave Yates |
