There will be 100 hand-numbered discs available at Sincerity Fest but there is an unlimited amount of downloads available at our BandCamp. Please check out the link and offer your support as this was entirely self-funded and released. We typically do everything for free ... but breaking even on this venture would be pretty cool.
Thank you in advance. Spread the word. Come to our release show/Sincerity Fest. That one is free.
I chose to spend my "moment of silence" at 8:46 AM this morning to reflect on how drastically my outlook on life changed 12 years ago today. In turn, I choose to no longer remain silent. These new tracks mostly represent this.
Thinking back I have no idea how I found out about this band. All I really remember is that they were responsible for luring me to my first show at The Mr Roboto Project ... which, at the time, was a very revolutionary action in my life. I was attending shows almost every weekend at the time (2001) but mostly at the larger clubs ... or the Millvale Industrial Theater (another story for another day). The venue struck a chord with me and would actually become very instrumental in both my life and the Pittsburgh Hardcore scene for close to a decade. But enough about the venue and more about the band.
At the time, Burnt By The Sun had released both a 4 song, self-titled EP and a split with a New Jersey outfit named Luddite Clone. In a day before music was readily available on the internet, I always made a point to search out CDs of the bands BEFORE they came through so that I could be at least somewhat familiar with what I was getting into. These discs, however, grabbed my full attention and I had memorized all of the songs and lyrics before the show even happened. I remember their vocalist giving a brief explanation behind the lyrics to You Will Move ... and that was something I hadn't become accustomed to yet. It was a very unique experience at the time; having someone playing on the same floor you were standing on, speaking to you like an actual human being on a somewhat personal level. Needless to say, this set formulated a lot of my idea of what hardcore should be.
All of that being said; the EP and the split remain my favorite material from this band. Unlike most bands, these early songs do not possess the typically primitive sound you expect to hear from a band's debut offering. These short-lived discs contain some of the most vital material the band ever put to tape, in fact ... and that's not to discredit the later material!
The debut full length, Soundtrack To The Personal Revolution made quite a wave when it was released. At the time it was a pretty big deal when a "metalcore" band got signed to a label like Relapse or Century Media or even Metal Blade (funny, huh?). To Relapse's credit, they put a fair amount of promotion behind this album. I'm fairly certain every hardcore kid from 2002 had at least heard the opening track, Dracula With Glasses. If you don't believe me, just watch the following YouTube video from Hell Fest 2002.
The band would tour quite frequently at the time and started to break into the metal scene with the momentum from this release. While diehard fans would embrace the follow-up full length, The Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good, a lot of the hardcore scene seemed to lose interest with the release of this album. While the sophomore full length explored into the experimental realm, a lot of the key hooks and obvious breaks found amongst the chaos of their earlier material were not present on this release.
The band seemingly faded into obscurity with the lack of new material/touring and the members seemingly all partaking in different musical endeavors on the side when, out of nowhere, it was announced that the band would be recording a final album before officially disbanding.
Heart Of Darkness essentially sets the tone right off the bat with the very first notes. By the time the track Inner Station is complete you have been made well aware that the band had made a conscious decision to go out with a bang. With an obvious return to their style of old, this album would have potentially turned Burnt By The Sun into a household name had it been the follow up album to Soundtrack To The Personal Revolution.
The band played their final show at Webster Hall in 2011 and, unfortunately, nothing has been heard from them since. Anyone with information as to what the members are currently involved in should speak up in the comments section.
DOWNLOAD Part 1 (self-titled, Luddite Clone split & Soundtrack To The Personal Revolution) DOWNLOAD Part 2 (The Perfect Is The Enemy Of The Good, Live From Contamination Fest & Heart Of Darkness)
This is a criminally underrated band that, despite having an album on Victory Records, never quite got the attention they deserved. The debut EP (self-titled) remains to be one of my favorite albums from the era. The six short songs contain some of the most brutal riffs ever put to tape (yes, this was recorded analog at Mars Studio in Cleveland, OH).
The follow-up EP entitled The True Face Of Panic on Goodfellow Records was also a landmark in brutality for its time. The two EPs would later be re-released on the same disc entitled Glorified Dirt. This time around, however, their replacement vocalist Nate Johnson (Deadwater Drowning, Fit For An Autopsy) would be featured on a re-recorded version of the debut, self-titled EP. The True Face Of Panic tracks remained untouched from its original state. While this version is quite awesome in its own right ... I'm not too sure you can top a metalcore recording coming out of Mars Studio.
The full length album on Victory entitled Left In Kowloon contains most of the tracks you would hear the band playing live if you ever caught them in the small timeframe in which they actively toured. The release on Victory Records still puzzles me a bit as there is not anything remotely close to a "single" on the album. I suppose Victory did have a shred of credibility remaining in 2004.
The band would round out their career with a split release with Benumb. Once again featuring their latter vocalist, Nate Johnson, this release would only feature 4 tracks ... two of which were covers. The final release still slays anything else that was coming out during it's time frame yet left something to be desired in comparison to their other releases.
There is always hope in my mind that the band will return in some form or another as the band has never officially broken up. In fact, I convinced the band to come out to play the first installment of my fest (which totally bombed, sorry) in 2007. I have heard of low key performances taking place in their hometown and actually drove to see them in Syracuse in 2009 with Architect (insane show) so here's to hoping for new material to surface one day.
