Burden of Grief – Follow the Flames (2010)

When we first got this promo album all tracks where garbled up with the bonus CD of the limited edition version that contains 8 cover tracks. While listening to this promo, we would get one song from the actual “Follow the Flames” album and the next one would be a totally random cover song, making this band seem bipolar or something like that. Now that we have arranged them correctly, we hear that Burden of Grief plays a very mean Melodic Death Metal, and that the cover CD is VERY different from what this band is actually capable off.

There are countless of Melodic Death Metal bands these days and it’s hard to find good new bands that will stick together for the long run and make decent music in the process. This is where Burden of Grief comes in, the band has released 4 albums in a span of ten years and seem to be constant enough to not be going anywhere anytime soon.

The first thing that we liked about “Follow the Flames” is the balls to the wall approach that Burden of Grief chose for their music. The band plays very aggressively from the first minute till the end of the album, and they don’t over do the melodic passages like others then to, instead the band has melodic sections that are paired with aggressive vocals and solid drumming, not just fills.

The versatility of the band is the next thing we enjoyed the most. Songs like “No Way Out” start very aggressive, then transform into a Heavy Metal inspired anthem, only to come back to Melodic DM and finish strong. All 9 songs are very well crafted to flow seamlessly and take you from all-on aggression to Melodic DM glory in just seconds.

The less important thing we enjoy about “Follow the Flames” is that it offers an alternative to all the ‘established’ bands of the genre and their particular styles (i.e Dark Tranquility). And Burden of Grief also does not have any Metalcore influences that many of the new Melodic DM bands seem to be incorporating into their music, so this band gets extra points for not going fashion-core on us.

If you like catchy and melodic riffs, this is the album for you. There are some ‘extreme epicness’ melodic moments but in slower doses than with other bands, we thing this works for “Follow the Flames” since it makes the album more cohesive and seamless, rather than just a bunch of ‘great’ moments.

By the way, the limited edition bonus CD is actually pretty interesting since the band plays covers of songs by Metallica, AC/DC, Blind Guardian, Sepultura and others with some special guests, so be sure to try to get this extra CD.

Release: August 28th, 2010

Country: Germany