Tag Archives: Burning Down Alaska

Impericon Never Say Die Tour With The Amity Affliction and Defeater This Fall

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Imperion Never Say Die Tour 2015

The Impericon Never Say Die Tour has announced its lineup for its 9th year of bringing metal, hardcore and metalcore bands to UK audiences. The tour will be headlined by The Amity Affliction with support from Defeater, Being As An Ocean, Cruel Hand, Fit For A King and Burning Down Alaska. A teaser for the tour can be seen at this link or below:

 

https://youtu.be/C4FYivdPqkE

 

 

Ivonne Davies Kreye of Avocado Booking commented on the tour:


″We are hoping kids are as pumped for INSD 2015 as we are! What a line up and what a great team we got for the tour. The tour will be a home run!″

 

Martin Böttcher of Impericon also shared his thoughts on the long running tour:

″This year, Avocado Booking remains faithful to the Impericon Never Say Die! Tour as they once again deliver another unprecedented line up. We look forward to celebrating with a proper party in Europe.″

 

The Amity Affliction singer, Joel Birch, also weighed in:

″We′re really excited to get back to Europe and the UK on the Impericon Never Say Die! Tour, not only because we always feel so welcomed there but also because the lineup we have is killer. It′s not often you want to watch every band on the bill – it′s going to be fucking wild, see you there!″

 

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Impericon Never Say Die Tour dates:

Nov 08: Koko – London, UK

Nov 09: Club Academy – Manchester, UK

Nov 10: Garage – Glasgow, UK

Nov 11: Marble Factory – Bristol, UK

Nov 13: Patronaat – Haarlem, NL

Nov 14: Markthalle – Hamburg, DE

Nov 15: Astra – Prague, CZ

Nov 16: Meet Factory – Budapest, HU

Nov 17: Dürer Kert – Wien, AT

Nov 18: Arena – Bologna, IT

Nov 19: Zona Roveri – München, DE

Nov 20: Backstage – Pratteln, CH

Nov 21: Z7 – Lyon, FR

Nov 22: Razzmatazz – Barcelona, ES

Nov 23: Sala Cats – Madrid, ES

Nov 24: Rock School Barbey – Bordeaux, FR

Nov 25: Machine Du Moulin Rouge – Paris, FR

Nov 26: LKA – Stuttgart, DE

Nov 27: Turbinenhalle – Oberhausen, DE

Nov 28: Werk 2, Leipzig, DE

 

 

Impericon Never Say Die Tour online

Impericon Never Say Die Tour on Facebook


Sworn In – The Lovers / The Devil

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Opening track ‘Sweetheart’ serves warning of the intent of The Lovers / The Devil (Razor & Tie), second opus from Illinois discordant hardcore act Sworn In. With the success of their debut The Death Card (also Razor & Tie) providing a heightened sense of expectation, ‘Sweetheart’ shows that this time around the quintet are going to be doing things differently as the track eases in with a lilting clean introduction before hitting a dirged repetitive stab slab of guitar with unhinged screaming to take us through to the end. With the album being a concept album about the duality of love, and incorporating, in the main, a duality of styles, it’s an appropriate introduction.

Lyrically, there’s a deliberate juvenility and a picking up where Korn left off with ‘Shoots and Ladders’, with several nursery rhymes being referenced, including songs called ‘Olioliolioxinfree’ and ‘Pocket Full of Posies’, a staggering, lumbering off-kilter rage of screaming over a broken lurch, with elements of Slipknot’s ‘Skin Ticket’ before a juxtaposition of cleaner, angelic singing over the chorus. Tyler Dennen sounds genuinely disturbed (small d) when catharting, but less convincing when hitting the cleans, like on the ineffective ‘I Don’t Really Love You’ which seems to be aiming to be a meld of King 810 and Deftones, but definitely lacks the clarity and single-mindedness of the former, or the epic scope and vocal class of the latter. Burning Down Alaska, for example, show how to mix battery and beauty much more effectively.

Ultimately, The Lovers / The Devil, comes across as a spliced Bioshock experiment, with two different styles being forced together and making uncomfortable bedfellows, and like when Chunk glues the penis back on the statue in The Goonies it’s the wrong way round, Sworn In end up pissing in their own faces as the heavy/screamo bits aren’t interesting enough, despite Dennen’s venom, and the cleans not convincing or catchy enough. ‘Sugar Lips’, first track “proper” is a key example, kicking off showing low-slung quasi-Deathcore discordance with screams and touches of electronica, before hitting a clean metalcore chorus that underwhelms rather than lifts. While there’s nothing wrong with bringing the two styles of rhythmic djent and emo-based-metalcore together, and ambition and experimentation should always be encouraged and lauded, in the main the execution is unskilled and clumsy.

 

5.0/10

Sworn In on Facebook

 

STEVE TOVEY

 


Burning Down Alaska – Values and Virtues

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The first thing to say about Germany’s Burning Down Alaska and their debut release Values and Virtues (Redfield) is that this feels much more like an album than an EP. Coming in at 9 tracks (7 songs actual) and displaying a progression from the build of, um, ‘Intro’ (one of the few short tracks that commence an album that actually enhance and do the job of leading you into the first track while setting the scene of the music that will follow), through the utilisation of a thoughtful album dynamic, to the closing anthemic ‘Trophies’ with its hollered chorus over a hooky lead.

The second is that this is a mature and very well put together proposition for a debut, particularly one in the modern/post-‘core field (can we not come up with a genre tag without the word “core” inappropriately tagged on the end of something?). No generic breakdown chugs for the sake of it, where matters do “break down”, such as on first song proper ‘Brighter Days’ it is to a slower expansive, reflective music piece, that led by the throat of Tobias Rische is used to provide contrast to the next section, where a gang shout brings the song back to tempo.

Credit is due to the musicianship on display, as littered throughout are careful and clever melodic quasi-clean, quasi-lead based guitars, multi-layered and excellently composed, with Marvin Bruckwilder and Dario Sanchez complimenting and interweaving with each other perfectly, with a reflective almost gothic quality on the ‘Reality & Fiction’, a track that belies the stage of development this band should be in.

In terms of comparisons, Burning Down Alaska have jumped straight to the  more progressive, grown up and developed point of their career, pitching in the Sempiternal (Bring Me The Horizon – RCA) or Daybreaker (Architects – Century Media) ballpark, fully developed and ready to stand their ground at that level. ‘Savior’ introduces female vocals to the mix to brooding effect, and proves, along with the excellent melodic hardcore anthem ‘Phantoms’, that this Recklinghausen quintet have the depth, gravitas and vision to really make a mark in the modern field of heavy music.

An excellent first impression.

 

8.5/10

Burning Down Alaska on Facebook

 

STEVE TOVEY