Album Review :
Burden of a Day - OneOneThousand
By Michael Mayer III in Reviews | Comments closed
Artist: Burden of a Day
Album: OneOneThousand
Label: Rise Records
Release Date: May 12, 2009
Review by: Michael Mayer III
Tracklisting:
- Remember
- Fool Me Once
- The Mason
- Oceans
- The Shame in Shedding Wool
- Sly Foxes
- Isadora Duncan
- OneOneThousand
- Modern Gentleman
- My Forfeit
In between their last album and this one, Burden of a Day had the type of lineup change that could break a band. Their singer, Kendall, left the band to get married and pursue the next stage of his life with God and Kyle came in to take over. Needless to say, they didn’t lose a step as Kyle has an amazing range in his singing and it’s one of the of OneOneThousand. There are vocal hooks aplenty as he belts out catchy choruses that just will NOT leave my head. He’s also backed up by some very impressive gang vocals that come in on chants or the good ol’ ‘Woah woah woah’s’.
The singing to screaming ratio is probably around 50/50 and when there is screaming it’s a nice range of highs and lows that give the songs an aggressive tone. There are frequent moments across the albums (at least 5 or 6 times) where the music will go silent and a heavy bass kick will blast in followed by some low growling and a fun breakdown. It’s nothing a band in this mold of post-hardcore/screamo hasn’t done before and after the first few times you come to predict it in every song.
That’s one of the things that drags this album down. The songs aren’t necessarily formulaic as the choruses and singing parts (which aren’t exclusive to the chorus, thank God) change up from song to song but some tricks are used a little too often. The album is also short with only ten tracks clocking in at just 35 minutes and one of those is a short instrumental (‘Oceans’) that serves as an intro to the strongest song, ‘The Shame in Shedding Wool’. That track is great with it’s unique structure and fun lyrics. Others, like ‘Isadora Duncan’ and the closer ‘My Forfeit’, have an epic quality with the guitars stirring up a mood and the gang vocals sweeping you into it.
Overall: Since the focus is more on melody than screaming this certainly isn’t the heaviest album in stores this year but it has it’s place. Sometimes I’m not in the mood for the most brutal piece of music known to man and I just want to rock out to some uplifting music to get my spirits up. OneOneThousand fits the bill for that despite not being the most original album and occasionally repetitive. Every time I spin this I end up cranking the volume, singing along loudly and have a blast all around. Sometimes originality and experimental music is more of a chore. After all, music is supposed to be fun, right?
Gems of this album are: ‘Remember’, ‘The Shame in Shedding Wool’, ‘Isadora Duncan’, ‘My Forfeit’
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