My Inner Burning – Eleven Scars (SPV)
When I listen to this album, I hear a good record trying to get out. However, over the course of Eleven Scars, it never quite does, and that’s why I can’t in good conscience recommend this record to anyone. The music is heavy, chugging midtempo metal, and some of the riffs could work on a Lamb Of God album or something like that. But in this setting, with Rebekka Gaber’s clean, overly melodic vocals on top of it, the riffing loses a lot of the power it could otherwise have. I’m reminded of Evanescence–back when that band first came out, I heard a couple of live recordings and thought they might be able to pull off the whole “gothy, melodic female vocals over heavy music” thing. But once they went into the studio, they succumbed to the temptation to overlay the whole thing with keyboards and production gloss, and suck all the heaviness out. My Inner Burning don’t quite go that far–during instrumental sections, the riffs sometimes hit quite powerfully–but the vocals always exert a distinct influence away from heaviness on the music as a whole. And My Inner Burning weren’t completely able to resist the temptation to add keyboards and layers of production to their songs. Like Evanescence, they lose a lot of their heaviness as a result, and even when you can hear those good riffs struggling to assert themselves, the songs still can’t really rock you. Ultimately, the mismatch between vocals and music cripples My Inner Burning, and without the potential for a crossover active-rock hit single, they’ll probably disappear even quicker than Evanescence did.
My Inner Burning – Eleven Scars (SPV)
When I listen to this album, I hear a good record trying to get out. However, over the course of Eleven Scars, it never quite does, and that’s why I can’t in good conscience recommend this record to anyone. The music is heavy, chugging midtempo metal, and some of the riffs could work on a Lamb Of God album or something like that. But in this setting, with Rebekka Gaber’s clean, overly melodic vocals on top of it, the riffing loses a lot of the power it could otherwise have. I’m reminded of Evanescence–back when that band first came out, I heard a couple of live recordings and thought they might be able to pull off the whole “gothy, melodic female vocals over heavy music” thing. But once they went into the studio, they succumbed to the temptation to overlay the whole thing with keyboards and production gloss, and suck all the heaviness out. My Inner Burning don’t quite go that far–during instrumental sections, the riffs sometimes hit quite powerfully–but the vocals always exert a distinct influence away from heaviness on the music as a whole. And My Inner Burning weren’t completely able to resist the temptation to add keyboards and layers of production to their songs. Like Evanescence, they lose a lot of their heaviness as a result, and even when you can hear those good riffs struggling to assert themselves, the songs still can’t really rock you. Ultimately, the mismatch between vocals and music cripples My Inner Burning, and without the potential for a crossover active-rock hit single, they’ll probably disappear even quicker than Evanescence did.
