Burden Of Grief - Follow The Flames (2010) [Limited Edition, 2CD]

After spending sixteen years in the melodic death metal underground, German post-Slaughter of the Soul melodic death metal outfit Burden of Grief is starting off the new decade with their best feet forward. ”Follow the Flames” marks the group’s fifth studio album, and quite arguably their most all-out effort to date. Signing on renowned Swedish death metal musician and producer Dan Swanö of Bloodbath and Edge of Sanity fame to mix and master as well as releasing an ambitious limited-edition double CD version featuring eight cover songs, it’s clear that Burden of Grief is out to stake a name for themselves with the release of “Follow the Flames”. Interestingly, unlike many melodic death metal outfits that have previously attempted to make it big by watering down their sound and blending in with the popularity of metalcore, Burden of Grief instead decides to stick to their guns, refusing to compromise their trademark muscular 90′s Swedish-esque sound for mainstream audiences, dishing up as aggressive an assault of thrashy-yet-melodic riffage as ever.

However, this refusal to evolve their sound is as much of a weakness as it is a strength, as too much of “Follow the Flames” merely blends in with the numerous other melodic death metal bands out there instead of standing out. As a result, “Follow the Flames” becomes more of an album for die-hard melodic death metal fans than for every single metalhead out there. Musically, Burden of Grief seems to have put extra thought and time into the crafting of each of these tracks, as they are all extremely well put-together, if rather predictable. The vast majority of the tracks on this album consist of four sections: the thrash-influenced main riff, the melodic hook, the old-school Swedish tremolo riffing, and the fairly standard layered guitar solos. Burden of Grief are far better at being thrashy and brutal than they are at making memorable melodic death metal hooks, so it’s a shame so much of this album focuses on being catchy instead of being heavy. Indeed, the first three tracks on “Follow the Flames” are the faster numbers and the best songs on the album – tracks like “The Arms of Death” or “Born in Fire” could have been written by superior melodic death metal bands such as The Absence. Sadly, Burden of Grief slows down and gets more melodic to the point of being slightly sugary (think newer In Flames) on the second half of the album, losing both the vigor and momentum that made the first half of “Follow the Flames” seem so promising. More tremolo-based, old-school sounding tracks like “Burning Red Eyes” close up the album on a fairly positive note, but, as a whole, “Follow the Flames” fails to leave a lasting impression with the listener beyond just another well-crafted melodic death metal album.

The bonus CD included in the “Follow the Flames” limited edition release is entirely composed of cover songs and is somewhat of an afterthought; most of the covers are pretty hit-or-miss. The covers of Metallica‘s ”The Four Horsemen” and Blind Guardian‘s “Valhalla” both work extremely well as far as covers go, since the tracks lend themselves quite nicely to Burden of Greif’s thrashy-yet-melodic style. The other covers are more forgettable, and only one cover (“Aces High”) falls flat on its face – hearing vocalist Mike Huhmann angrily growl Bruce Dickinson’s epic, soaring vocals is somewhat laughable.

As a whole, “Follow the Flames” is a solid modern melodic death metal release, but it’s not anything more than that. Fans of the underground European melodic death metal scene should enjoy this album quite a bit, casual fans of the scene should enjoy this album just a bit, and it should simply bore those who aren’t solid on post-Slaughter of the Soul melodic death metal in the first place.

Tracklist:

CD 1:
1. Ignition (Intro) - 00:42
2. Follow the Flames - 04:19
3. Born in Fire - 04:30
4. The Arms of Death - 04:04
5. Disruption of a Confused Mind - 03:50
6. Doomed to Fail - 04:38
7. No Way Out - 04:34
8. Mirror of Truth - 04:18
9. Burning Red Eyes - 03:44
10. Fallen - 03:27
11. Rise Like a Phoenix - 04:47

CD 2 (The limited edition will contain a cover bonus cd with the following tracklist):
1. Aces High (Iron Maiden)
2. The Four Horsemen (Metallica)
3. Break On Trough (The Doors) feat. Dan Swano
4. Mouth For War (Pantera)
5. Fool For Your Loving (Whitesnake)
6. Refuse / Resist (Sepultura) feat. Sabina Classen
7. Hell Ain't A Bad Place To Be (AC/DC)
8. Valhalla (Blind Guardian) feat. Gerre


Line up:
Mike Huhmann - Vocals
Philipp Hanfland - Guitar
Johannes "Joe" Rudolph - Guitar
Florian Bauer - Bass
Sebastian "Rob" Robrecht - Drums