They’ve only been playing out locally for a couple of months, but brand new RVA quartet Burn/Ward have been grabbing some attention with their fast and furious power-violence sound. Now they’ve got a demo out that converts their wall-of-noise live sound into somewhat more comprehensible form.
They’ve only been playing out locally for a couple of months, but brand new RVA quartet Burn/Ward have been grabbing some attention with their fast and furious power-violence sound. Now they’ve got a demo out that converts their wall-of-noise live sound into somewhat more comprehensible form. In a town full of relatively-conventional hardcore bands, Burn/Ward’s take on the super-fast grind parts, crushing breakdowns, and stop-on-a-dime tempo changes of the power-violence subgenre is somewhat unconventional. It’s the sort of thing we haven’t heard much of locally since Street Pizza became a part-time proposition due to bassist Joe Kerkes joining Inter Arma. Of course, Burn/Ward’s similarity to Street Pizza makes sense in light of the fact that both bands feature Nathaniel Roseberry on drums. They’ll actually be making creative use of this member-sharing situation when Burn/Ward and Street Pizza open for Bastard Sapling at Strange Matter on Friday, January 31 with a split set. While that probably just means the bands will switch off halfway through, we can’t help but kinda hope they’ll be switching back and forth between each song. That’s always fun to watch.
In the meantime, the new Burn/Ward demo is guaranteed to keep your interest–after all, it’s too short not to. Its seven songs clock in at 5:37, with only opener “Troubled Hand” lasting longer than a minute. There are plenty of superspeed blastbeats to be found, but the band proves they know their way around a slow part with some brutal breakdowns on tracks like “Vicious To Bear Witness.” Meanwhile, vocalist Ericka Kingston belies her petite stature with the kind of powerful roars plenty of intimidating-looking hardcore frontmen aren’t able to summon up on their best days. The songs are all connected by screeching feedback, making the whole demo seem to go by even faster. The end arrives a little too quickly, if you ask me, which also tend to be true of their live sets. But fortunately, unlike in a live environment, you can always just play the demo again. Download Burn/Ward’s demo from Bandcamp HERE, or stream it below.
