Burst – Lazarus Bird
Posted on October 23, 2008 at 8:00 am by admin
If you were at all familiar with Sweden’s Burst, you’d probably know that in your heart they someway, somehow fit into that world of Nuerosis, Isis, Cult of Luna and Mastodon (well, not quite so much Mastodon anymore). The thing with those bands that fit into that world is that they don’t have to actually sound similar to fit in, there’s just a certain aesthetic and aura that goes with them that appeals to those fans.
The older efforts ran simple chords into shimmering melodies and topped it all off with a bark, although they were moving away from that sound on the previous “Origo”. “Lazarus Bird” is all over the place, mostly in good ways, such as their classic sense of underlying melody. The clean vocals that showed up in the previous effort are more prevalent here, but this time the two voices, harsh and clean, are played off each other, and sometimes against each other. Introduced are the oddities you might not see coming, such as a Pink Floyd interval, a blues guitar solo, a jagged horn outro, the minute dissonance, odd effects, near-jazz jumps, and duelling guitar harmonies with both clean and dirty tones. No need to worry about those harmonies, and their origins aren’t Swedish in a death metal sense, though they are pretty inspirational.
The attempts at experimentation feel partially natural, but playing with horns, Pink Floyd and jazz are starting to become standard territory for experimental bands. Sometimes the addition of new spices to this recipe feels a little forced.
For a band who doesn’t want to stay static, yet practically invented a new, inspired sound (as evidenced by “Prey on Life”) it can be understandably difficult to play with something new, and instead play with something old in different place to appear new. The best songs end up being the ones that actually take the old Burst into longer journeys. The last, and longest songs, “(We Watched) the Silver Rain” and “City Cloaked” sound like the old Burst, but with longer songs that build and dive. “City Cloaked” however does take the bands old material in a different direction for the huge closing portion with its spacey echoing melodies, and comes off like the pure natural, naked emotion that felt like it came so easy in later efforts.
The beginning of “Lazarus Bird” gets a little cobbled up pulling in some outside influences, though I have to say the effort really focuses itself by the end. It’s a trip you’ll need to hear to believe, as while the descriptions I’ve made for “Lazarus Bird” certainly fit when read on paper, the album itself is like a journey into the unknown.
Released September 16th, 2008
Burst at MySpace
Relapse Records at Myspace
Buy this album at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca
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