Black Light Burns
Cruel Melody

It should be June 5th, the day on which, after several postponements, Cruel Melody by the "super-band" Black Light Burns will be released. I refer to Black Light Burns as a super-band because it consists of Wes Borland (former Limp Bizkit guitarist), Danny Lohner (Nine Inch Nails), Josh Frese (The Vandals, A Perfect Circle, Nine Inch Nails), and Josh Eustis (Telefon Tel Aviv).

Despite these quite important names, the band is expected to have a different formation for live performances. Besides them, several musicians participated in the recordings, which we will see later. On their Myspace (if you have time, check it out, there's also the video for the first single...) they say they play rock, gothic, electro funk. This is a fundamentally accurate definition, but to understand a bit more, it's enough to say that they play a bit like Nine Inch Nails (and it couldn't be otherwise)...

Analyzing the album more specifically, the record starts with a song with a rather bizarre title "Mesopotamia", very electronic and very '90s. Right after, there's "Animal", which in my opinion is one of the best tracks, followed by the first single "Lie" (quite a decent video with Borland looking a lot like the late Brandon Lee from "The Crow"). In the title-track, Carina Round lends her voice. While in "Coward", a very valuable song, the additional voice is that of the twenty-year-old Sonny Moore (recently became the former singer of From First to Last). A good friendship was born between Borland and Moore, which started when, in the absence of a bassist in FFtL, the former Bizkit guitarist decided to help them by recording the bass parts on the "Heroine" album and playing with them in various summer festivals and several concerts.

In "Have a Need", absolutely one of the best songs, the bass is played by their still-friend Sam Rivers. While Johnette Napolitano can be heard in the epic "I Am Where It Takes Me", a good 6-minute-long track that doesn't bore even for a moment. Closing the album, there's an instrumental track, as is very fashionable now, about 8 and a half minutes long, but to avoid any misunderstandings, it must be said that "Iodine Sky" (that's the title) is a truly beautiful, moving, and at times also poignant song.

The album is the first release for I Am: Wolfpack, the new label by producer Ross Robinson, under Ryko license for Europe. The result is a crossover between powerful rock and explosive industrial with a focus on melodies. The lyrics, curated by Borland himself, are dangerously filled with intense yet fickle pessimism and translate into a constant emotional assault.

Anyone expecting a simple side-project or something similar will be quite disappointed because this is truly an outstanding album that requires a few more listens, so stay comfortable on the couch when you press "play."