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Artist: BURZUKH
Album: End Game
Year: 2008
Two-thousand-and-eight brings us a release of our
favourite (and probably only known) band (or should I
say one man project) from Pakistan. After the preverious
releases 'Orion' (2007) and 'Industrial City' (2004),
the guy behind Burzukh - Suleiman - comes up with 'End
Game'. It consists out of ten brand new tracks, again
self-released and self-promoted, and is described as "malevolant
metal". According to the promotional text that came with
this release, we can be expecting "10 tracks of morphing
metal insanity which touch upon black metal, gothic ,
industrial, doom, death, crust and new wave without
being part of any of those genres."
The release kicks off with 'Job Done'. It's an easy
listening, droning track that has influences from old
school gothic to modern dark metal. The diversity in the
vocals are really exceptional in this song. 'Avoid The
Light' has a chaotic opening, but when it has found some
order it turns out to be a pretty easy listening song
again, with mostly old school influences. 'Faraib' is
more uptempo, and consists of powerful guitars and
programming. It switches from brutal parts (with wicked
guitarwork) to more quiet and melancholic stuff, and
because it's quite a short track as well it might sound
like a whirlwind to some of you. 'Fighting - Dying' is
probably the most catchy track of this release. It has
strong metal guitars and recogniseable vocal lines (specially
the chorus), which are brought to you in a decent and
variative song structure. 'Citizens and Soldiers' is a
very dark and melancholic track, with clean vocal lines
and a gentle approach. The different guitarwork is a
nice exchange from the distorted ones in the preverious
tracks. 'Land With No Name' is again more uptempo, and
has some experimental guitar and programming works. The
musically approach of this track comes close to
industrial black metal (specially the more uptempo parts),
which might appeal fans of this genre. 'Bil Layl' is a
track that has similarities with 'Citizens and Soldiers',
but it has a more melancholic approach. The (clean)
vocal lines are filled with despair, while the
protounding musical works give the track a very dark
atmosphere. 'World of the Dead' is a very experimental
song, that has elements of electro metal, industrial
black metal and old school gothic metal. 'No One' has
uptempo programming and melodic guitars. The more quiet
parts take care of a little melancholic touch within the
track. It's very accessable overall. 'Face In The Fire'
is already the final track on 'End Game'. It's again a
melancholic song, with some more powerful parts now and
then, which is a good clear end of this release.
After 'Industrial City' and 'Orion', this is already the
third Burzukh release I had to review, and in my opinion
this is definitely the best out of the three. First of
all, it features more tracks than the other releases,
and next to this - the songs have more variation. Tracks
like 'Job Done' and 'World of the Dead' are very
accessable to fans of many different genres (even some
mainstream ones), while 'Faraib' and 'Land with No Name'
could fit on any (industrial) black metal compilation.
Burzukh offers sonically mostly a melancholic and gentle
approach, and manages to mix the different influences
nicely into one. As well lyrically, Burzukh is more than
just a regular band in this genre. It shows a good
reflection on the current situations in the homeland of
this project (Pakistan) in an original way of
explaining.
Where Burzukh's preverious releases came with a bad, DIY
production - the production on 'End Game' is much
better. Still, you definitely hear that it's far away
from a professional one, but it is much better than most
of your 'kvlt' black metal releases. And despite the
fact that the production is still a little chaotic here
and there, it didn't spoil the fun for me. This is
definitely Burzukh's best and most accessable release up
to date, and will certainly be well recieved by the
people who follow this project for quite some time
already. You didn't so far? Tssk tssk... Download the
release over here and become one of them:
http://www.zshare.net/download/10171750f9170bd4/
Vote: 85 / 100
Review by: Gerardo |
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01. Job Done
02. Avoid The Light
03. Faraib
04. Fighting - Dying
05. Citizens and
Soldiers
06. Land With No Name
07. Bil Layl
08. World of the Dead
09. No One
10. Face in the Fire |
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