BURNING BLACK — Remission of Sin (review)

BURNING BLACK — Remission of Sin album cover

Album · 2014 · Heavy Metal

2.5/5 · 2014-11-08
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Remission of Sin (2014) is the third full-length album by Italian heavy metal act Burning Black. It's been five years since their last album MechanicHell (2009). The membership of Burning Black has changed quite a bit in the intervening years with only vocalist Dan Ainlay still in the band from the line-up that appeared on MechanicHell.

I have to confess that I wonder what label Limb Music was thinking when they put together the descriptions in the promo package for Remission of Sin. Either that or they accidentally sent me another band's album. You see they continually refer to Remission of Sin and the band as power metal, even going as far to assert that while MechanicHell was more like a US power metal release (in my experience USPM is much closer to the heavy metal root) Remission of Sin is much more based around the European brand (which draws more on the speed metal root and is the more instantly recognisable of the two). I have been trying recently to avoid reviewing new power metal albums in order to cover different genres of metal, but decided to make an exception for a new release on Limb Music. While I do think the label has had a couple of miss records since they've been sending me their stuff, there have been far more hits, not least this year's excellent Skyliner debut Outsiders (2014). Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, the description that Remission of Sin is a power metal album, particularly a European style power metal album, is actually a load of rubbish. There are some leanings towards the genre in some of the speedier bits of the album, but otherwise this is more or less pure traditional heavy metal.

But hey, I've received promo packages before that sounded completely different to what the artist/record label/promoter described it as. It isn't a problem and in this case I can even do this review of Burning Black's latest with impunity; it's not a power metal record, therefore I am not breaking my promise to myself and my readers to cover genres that aren't power metal for a while.

All this build up isn't to say that Remission of Sin isn't an album without problems based on what it actually sounds like though. First among them is that Remission of Sin doesn't really offer up anything you can't find many other bands doing. I expect that this is a problem that all music fans eventually have when they've listened to a genre for many years and have heard a lot of albums; it takes that something extra to really impress. You can't really say if asked what something extra actually is, but you always know it when you hear it and I don't hear it here.

Well, usually anyway, as the second problem I have with Remission of Sin is actually a double-edged sword because Burning Black do in fact prove that they can go that extra mile. The second from last track Far Away is the absolute highlight of this release. It's really incredible how after nine pleasant enough but ultimately bland and inoffensive heavy metal tracks that the band abruptly hit one out of the park. It's like someone suddenly let them off their leash and without any restraints they delivered a whopper. This is especially true of the vocalist Dan Ainlay. Where the hell did this song come from?

As I said, this is a double-edged sword, because while Far Away's presence does make me sort of inclined to bump the score I had in mind for Remission of Sin up until that point up a tier I ultimately have to hold back for the simple reason that one really good song ultimately does more harm than good. Ironic isn't it? It shows up the rest of the material on the album so that come its conclusion all I can think about Remission of Sin is how good that one song was. There are ten other tracks on the album, all of them eclipsed by the one.

I think a 2.5 star rating is fairest for Remission of Sin. That may even be considered generous by some considering the text of this review. Ultimately though even though Burning Black strike gold only the one time in eleven tracks this can't be considered a bad release. A hellishly frustrating release maybe as I can only imagine how epic and powerful this would be if everything was on the level with Far Away but overall not bad. Not that good either, but not bad.