Cruel Melody |2007, I AM: Wolfpack| 
Mesopotamia, Animal, Lie, Coward (featuring Sonny Moore), Cruel Melody (featuring Carina Round), The Mark, I Have a Need (featuring Sam Rivers), 4 Walls, Stop a Bullet, One of Yours, New Hunger, I Am Where it Takes Me (featuring Johnette Napolitano), Iodine Sky
Black Light Burns was founded in 2005 and instantly got a huge fan base. There are a few reasons for this kind popularity around the alternative music scene but the most important is the line-up: Wes Borland, ex guitar player of Limp Bizkit (also in Big Dumb Face, From First to Last), Danny Lohner, ex-Nine Inch Nails (plays in his own project Reinholder as well) and the drummer Josh Freeze (mostly associated to bands like Devo, A Perfect Circle, The Damning Well, NIN, Guns N' Roses).
They started in a very good moment, when the scene of rock music didn't have anyone interesting to promote, because since a boom for Seattle music there have been no new music. BLB vibe is more alternative, melodic, guitar driven with catchy refrains so I mentioned Seattle as I hear similarities to music by Stone Temple Pilots (Coward, The Mark), but also to Telefon Tel Aviv, Underworld (Iodine Sky), NIN ( programming in Animal and guitars in 4 Walls, but NIN-like stuff only in terms of their The Fragile and With Teeth albums).
The CD begins with Mesopotamia, which became a kind of an anthem and I believe the song is most often associated to BLB music. A very characteristic track is also I Have a Need with cool, new wave guitar riff, vocal parts and drums, because all of those appear in the right time during the song. Stop a Bullet reminds me some song by Marilyn Manson from his Mechanical Animals CD. One of Yours has something of Primus at the song beginning (thanx to guitars). My favourite track is New Hunger, a beautiful composition enriched with ambient background, industrial rock samples and guitars kept in an remarkable atmosphere. Fading of the song's end adds even more impression while listening. There are a few moderated songs, like this mentioned above but also I Am Where it Takes Me, Cruel Melody, and Iodine Sky,
which reminds me a vibe of those progressive-electronic bands kind of Telefon Tel Aviv and Underworld. It's not a surprise then that Josh Eustis known from working with Telefon Tel Aviv produced Cruel Melody CD.
I do recommend that album to the listeners who look for some good music created by well experienced musicians with great knowledge and worth of having influences, also with an artistic attitude. Their music is a mixture between melodic alternative rock, industrial rock, new wave, sound of Seattle (with the most impact caused seemingly by Stone Tempel Pilots). The artwork is based on Wes Boreland's painting. The other of his works you can see clicking to www.theborlandgallery.com.
(Katarzyna 'NINa' Górnisiewicz. Must not be used for promotional or commercial purposes. See a Legal Note for the copyrights below.)
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