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Rating: In today's world, there are plenty of bands that combine metal and American-style hardcore sounds, and the risk of coming across bands that rehash clichés without the slightest originality is not low at all. Burst certainly cannot be categorized into this group, quite the opposite.
Childhood friends and fanatics of the most varied extreme sounds, the five young Swedes, since their debut "Conquest: Writhe", seemed to have well absorbed the teachings of Neurosis & co., adding distinct Scandinavian death influences to the mix. In 2003, the group joined the Relapse roster and released an even more mature and complete album, "Prey On Life", a solid and compact work that ends up multiplying the acclaim already expressed in the past by critics and audience alike. "Svedishcore," this is how the music of Linus Jägerskog and company can be defined, a skillful blend of Scandinavian death metal and overseas hardcore that, in the eleven tracks of "Prey On Life", reaches excellent levels and raises good hopes for the future. A succession of granite-like riffs, samples that further enrich the sound structures crafted by the band, abrupt accelerations and tempo changes that, right from the introductory distortions of "Undoing (Prey On Life)", seem to psychologically prepare the listener for what awaits. However, it is in magnificent pieces like "Rain" and "Visionary" that the band achieves perfection, managing to temper the (sometimes) excessive death frenzy, and delve into the more ambient and atmospheric side of their sound. Truly applause-worthy.
In short, "Prey On Life" is an album that will not disappoint anyone, and, if it doesn't reach total perfection, it is damn close. Kudos to Burst, then, and another success to be recorded for the legendary Relapse label, now a synonym of guarantee and quality in all respects.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Sculpt the Lives (03:16)
Cold eyes of fire
Talk to me
Stillborn desire
In the air I breathe
In our wanton spirits
I read
Closure,
Nauseating rites
A face and heart I heed
Unprecedented,
In longing
As we soar still higher
As Icarus we'll plunge
In longing manner we'll admire
Into depths all unknown
Soul and purpose set alight
Over barren lands we've flown
In transmission
Morning thrives.
05 The Foe Sublime (04:28)
Feigned
The image of a world unfolds
Deluded, but divine
It sees us mocking gifted grace
A stolen self
Will not succumb
See your face in the mirror
It's your image on a face of another
See your principles
Constantly wither
What is this will but a riddle?
In splendor
We were born again
Renewed and whole,
A chance reborn
Sustenance
We've found
Yet we tear it from our minds
So find a way through these foes
With your tears
Scattered around the wound
It scares us not,
This path's design
Run these demons gone amok
Astray
07 Crystal Asunder (03:29)
I see the cadence
Random
But altogether clear
This scorn was never mine
Though it's all that I hold dear
Futile charity
Holy promises
I dream it all away
This consequence is yours to keep
I shun it all away
Stone, buried asunder
I burn
Stale fever running high
Clawing at my skin
The temple
The wraith has had its say
In the bright
Transparent light
Stone, buried asunder
And I define a wanton cold
And I decline the patterns of old
You will never defeat
The cadence sublime
Stone.
Buried.
Asunder
08 Vortex (03:30)
All that I see can conceive
Your wanton indifference derides
Decisions weren't hard to deceive
How we fooled ourselves
When it died
Searching for a new place to hide
Afar from your vile, naive complacency
Burning
Scathing
In nausea confide
Mocked in sudden ecstacy
In the earth
As in fire
Fundamental laws I repel
The fool I was,
Allured by desire
Corroded and hollow you feel.
All and more you could not see
When the frankness would devour
Though the flesh trouble me
And the world tempt me sore;
The victor I was to be
Ascended, your futile ways I deplore.
10 Visionary (05:23)
Please stay awake
Our defining moment struck
The power faithless
Struck
While we were contemplating visions
Visions ran us by
Immortal
Yet decayed
Oh truth, this bitter lie
Though it burns like hell's fire
Scorched are all but us
Did ambition not prevail
While mortal seasons fled?
We seize this carving,
Here and now
Or the earth shall strike us
Dead
Though it froze like cold destruction
Disarmed are all but us
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