Raised-Horns.co.uk
Review by Luke Hayhurst

Psychophonic heavyweights Burnt, hailing from Stoke On Trent are here with a CD of aggression, heavy metal riffs and powerful harmonies that will blast your senses from start to finish.

Starting with the title track “Rephrase The Lie” this CD starts heavy from the very off with raw vocals and repetitive rolling riffs, complemented by sporadic double bass drum beats giving the track a fast flowing feel. Awesome guitar solo’s ring out through the middle section before the vocals and rolling riffs come in once more.

“Birth” starts just as up-tempo with gradually rising riffs and more harmonic vocals in the chorus. Towards the end of the track is a bouncy string of riffs designed to get your head banging along. Frankly an awesome song that has everything from gut wrenching heaviness to precise chord work to melodic vocals.

Raw vocals come blazing back in during “Taste The Degradation” and combined with stop start rolling riffs, Burnt once again hit the nail on the head with a tremendous feast of pure metal genius.

“Reject & Revolt” keeps up the pace and solid bombardment of heavy metal riffs while “Protest” adds a slightly more industrial quality to the CD in the intro before turning into a very Chimaira-esque track.

“Release The Chains” stays very much in the vein of Chimaira with solid bass lines and awesome riff-age, while “Revolutions Drowned” takes you back to the early Pantera era in sound and style.

Upping the pace once again “Straight & Narrow” is a sonic blast of metal directed straight at your senses. Violent riffs and pure aggression from the vocalist make this stand out as one of the tracks of the disc.

Black Label Society eat your heart out. “Rectify This” has all the riff-age and grace of a certain BLS song by the name of “Bleed For Me” and IS the song of the CD.

Fast, frantic and crammed with powerful vocals and break neck drumming.

So to end this frankly stunning CD is the grinding winding roller coaster that is “Defy”. Awesome pace changes throughout and hard hitting riffs and drumming give this a great end of album feel.

Burnt are simply awesome, there are no other words to describe their music. You must get this CD because this is a band going far!!!

5/5

 

Goatfucker.co.uk
Review by Simon Eaton

After buying the demo, seeing Burnt live a couple of times and hearing that Dan Weller & Justin Hill of Sikth fame where recording the album I was looking forward to this album and rightfully so.

It opens suddenly and abruptly with the title track and then smoothly into an old classic in "Birth" which is as good as the first day it was play. I’m glad to see that they included my personal favourites in "Revolution Drowned" and "Reject & Revolt" and the classic "Defy" ends the album perfectly. The new songs on the album add loads more to the album and don’t' hinder the sound at any point yet show a different in the Burnt style.

My only real problem with the album....and these are small things because I'm a nit picker. The album is a bit to short for my liking its only half an hour which I agree adds more to the anger, aggression and energy of the album but I would prefer more songs and a bit more time on there maybe the song that was held back for the next release could have been used to this effect unless of course it was written at the time of recording then I conceded defeat and will let them have it. The other bad thing is listen to the demo I prefer Ants vocal work to that of the album his vocals seemed to be more stressed on the album and more dominate on the demo but once you’ve listen to it once through you get used to his new style and that is probably me just being picking but that’s what I think.

All in all a good solid effort for the bands long deserved debut can’t wait to hear the follow up

7/10

Live4Metal.com
Review by Matt Mason

This is the debut album from Stoke on Trent bruisers Burnt. Whilst it doesn’t break the mould in the world of British metalcore there is enough happening on here to keep this listener happy for 34 mins 43 seconds. (That’s how long the album is numbnuts!)
The album opens with the title track which bursts into life with Biohazard like riffage before descending into Zed from Police Academy vox that Mr Tardy would be proud of. At this point I am surprised as I was expecting another identikit UK “brutal” band. Shows I should stop being such a cynical bastard eh? Track two keeps the riffs coming thick and fast and yes these guys have obviously listened to At The Gates but they don’t appear to have raped the amiable Swedes and left them bleeding in a multi storey car park somewhere, unlike so many others of today’s sing-a-longa core kidz.

The sound on this album is superb, which for a small indie label is credit to both the band and Dan and Justin from Hertfordshire nutters Sixth who produced it. The band are so tight that gnats the world over are flying to Beverly Hills for analplasty. Matt Wainright on drums has a great double kick going and holds it all together without over egging the pudding. On “Protest” he drops from pounding thrash to a 70s style groove without a seam in sight. Ben Courtney on bass is completely in synch with his seated buddy, whilst Steve Smith and John Dugmore chug like steamboats up front. Ant Boultons voice is a versatile instrument going from death growl to Layne Staley style anguish to hardcore barking within the same verse on “Release the Chains”.
On the evidence of this debut it is obvious why Caliban, Stampin’ Ground and Skindred have felt them fit to be touring mates. This album is certainly worth the £7.99 they are charging on their websites.
Remember kids, in the world of meat Burnt is just another way of saying extremely Well Done.