Style: Progressive hardcore punk
Primary Emotions/Themes: Two dueling forces wrestling for control
Thoughts: Now this was unexpected. I had known about this album since its release and I enjoyed it quite a bit back then. Somehow it fell off my radar for nearly a decade until I saw that it got a repress. The price was right so I picked it up without a second thought.
Burst are a bit of an anomaly. At their core they are hardcore punk, but that's like saying Neurosis or Converge are hardcore punk. It's a part of their sound, but they have evolved far beyond the confines of that genre.
The core aspect of the sound on Lazarus Bird is one of light and dark, violence contrasting peace, complexity mirroring calm. It's an paradoxical album that finds its identity in opposing forces. This is seen both musically and vocally.
Musically the band alternates between clean and distorted electric guitar riffs, simple to complex riff arrangements, and a linear song structure. The riffs are the driving force of the music. They ebb and flow with a grace that is uncommon. Full on distorted riffs with a blast beat will turn into clean guitars that mimic rain drops in an instant. A massive build up that takes six minutes to morph from the humblest of origins into a mighty behemoth of a song is done effortlessly.
The vocals mirror the riffs in every capacity. Employing two vocalists, one for cleans one for the traditional hardcore shout. While both vocalists don't typically overlap, there are points in the songs where they are used in a duet. These are the moments that truly shine. The highlights of the album include the sections where the music is weaving in and out of distortion and the two vocalists are overlapping each other in a beautiful dance. Cripple God, (We Watched) The Silver Rain, and City Cloaked all reach rare heights with this combination.
Lazarus Bird is not a perfect album, there are some awkward moments - but when the band puts everything together they reach rarefied air. This is the last album that the band has released and that's a damn shame. The band truly found their own sound with this album. At very least they decided to leave at the top of their game.
Written May 16th 2024
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