ALBUM REVIEW: It All Returns To Nothing – Burner
You’d be hard pushed to find any band more deserving of the hype they’ve picked up over the past year than South London’s BURNER. Last June they released their phenomenal debut EP A Vision Of The End via Church Road Records and since then they’ve been decimating stages across the country while somehow finding just enough time to write and record their much-anticipated debut full-length. It All Returns To Nothing arrives just days after the first anniversary of that excellent first EP, and it is exactly the kind of step up one would hope of the progression to a longer format.
To be fair, they haven’t had to tweak the recipe much at all. A Vision Of The End already struck a pretty much inch-perfect balance between death metal and hardcore and that remains just as true of this record, the main difference being that the band have a little more room to make their mark this time. It All Returns To Nothing feels suitably bigger and broader than its predecessor, with more ideas in the mix as BURNER draw from a collection of truly wonderful influences (the likes of CONVERGE, ENTOMBED and TRAP THEM all spring to mind) and filter them into something that ultimately feels unique to the quartet alone.
Above all else, the band are most likely to be identified by the metric shit-tonne of riffs they carry around with them. It All Returns To Nothing fires them out with such consistent force, and in so many different shapes and sizes, that one starts to wonder if there will be any left for the rest of the year. All four of the advance singles are proof enough – each and every one an absolute rager – but there’s just as much saved for the full album experience; the metalcore-tinged chug of Pyramid Head, the filthy groove and frankly dangerous final breakdown of EF5, and the chaotic PIG DESTROYERisms of closer Waco Horror are a few more brilliant examples, but there are no wrong answers when it comes to highlights here.
That said though, there is one particularly obvious choice for a stand out and that’s penultimate track An Affirming Flame. At seven and a half minutes, it’s more than double the length of anything else on the record, and it doesn’t waste a second. As special as they are all the time, BURNER really do seem to thrive when they have this kind of room to play with – as they did on the title track of the EP – this time producing a dynamic masterwork that brings some of their post and blackened influences more obviously to the fore. It’s further proof of their impressive range, and much like the sensibly placed interlude of Trinity right in the middle of the record, it brings an additional sense of journey and flow to It All Returns To Nothing that elevates it further still.
It also only seems fair to highlight once again the considerable talents of vocalist Harry Nott who continues to set the band apart both with his versatile delivery and his outward-focused lyrics. The message of second single Prometheus Reborn is particularly poignant for example – “a warning against the ever-present threat of nuclear weapons” – while others like Hurt Locker and Pillar Of Shame are dedicated to the people of Ukraine and to the pro-democracy protesters of Tiananmen Square respectively. Even if Nott’s harsh fries and gutturals mean it generally helps to have the lyrics in front of you, the fact is that BURNER are a band who actually stand for something, and as he repeatedly screams “liberation” in ninth track The Long March, or asserts that “nothing changes if we don’t change ourselves” in the aforementioned An Affirming Flame, their intentions are impossible to miss.
To an extent though, that wouldn’t mean much if the band didn’t have the power to back it up, which hopefully this review has made clear that they absolutely do. Perhaps not since CONJURER has there been a hyped-up debut full-length from a UK band that has delivered as remarkably as this. It All Returns To Nothing meets every expectation BURNER have set for themselves over the past 12 months or so and then proceeds to run several miles further still; even as many others are mixing death metal and hardcore so wonderfully at the moment, this album gets the balance as close to perfection as possible, and benefits further still by not stopping there. Of course, they may always belong in a relative niche, but if you consider yourself a fan or part of that niche then you really can’t miss this one.
Rating: 9/10
It All Returns To Nothing is set for release on June 23rd via Church Road Records.
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