Burning Point – The Ignitor (Scarlet Records)

Tuesday, 26th March 2013
Rating: 8/10

Bands like Burning Point are a tough sell. They rely heavily on a generic, unoriginal power metal base that offers nothing new to the genre. Worse yet they hail from Finland and have to fight for notoriety, given a more bombastic band like Children of Bodom are fellow countrymen and sell extremely well internationally. With all that being said, one would think continuing on as a band would be pointless, but I am here to tell you differently.

In fact, The Ignitor, the fifth release by the band proves this group can still manage to blend melodic metal with traditional Euro-power elements. When you add a little flair and gusto into the mix, many of the songs are straight-ahead, hugely catchy numbers with big hooks and competent performances all around. More importantly, they maintain enough crunch within the songs themselves to push the album’s 43 minutes of running length easily without ever sounding boring.

The general consensus among power metal devotes is that this band is run of the mill and chock full of genre clichés, but as a fan of this style I’m having a hard time towing the line. Songs like “Silent Scream,” “Heaven Is Hell,” “Losing Sleep” and “Demon Inside Of You” comprise the middle section of the album, and they all share memorable melodies while remaining heavy. The highlight song in my opinion is “Everdream,” simply because vocalist Pete Ahonen hits Rob Halford-like screams and couples that with a razor edged mid-range to balance out his vocals.

The back-end of the album is loaded with strong numbers such as “Lost Tribe” and “Holier Than Thou.” The aggression is definitely not lacking here and both songs pop with youthful enthusiasm that hit’s its stride and culminates in the final song to close out the album. In my estimation, Burning Point provides a classiness that is missing with many of today’s standard power metal acts. So despite the claims of this band being entirely unoriginal, I say ignore those claims and give this album a chance. What you will find here is highly accessible tunes with catchy choruses molded around a fist pumping ethos to boot.

Burning Point official website

(This content originally appeared on Blistering.com) 

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