EP review: Burner – A Vision Of The End

Strap yourself in. Or maybe don’t. Because Burner’s debut EP is the sound of you, well, burning alive in the wreckage of a crashed car. From the moment the squalling feedback that introduces opener Ingsoc – named after the party of the ruling elites in George Orwell’s (perhaps now not so) dystopian novel 1984 – violently disrupts the airwaves, to the last vestiges Of Rat King Crown five songs later, A Vision Of The End truly lives up to its name. It’s a gnarled, twisted, burnt corpse rising from the pyre to wreak revenge on anyone who ever did him wrong.

It’s an overwhelmingly gruesome effect that’s achieved by the London-based quartet mixing death metal and hardcore, as well as a bit of black metal for good measure, to furious aplomb. Coruscating doesn’t even begin to describe it. The aforementioned Ingsoc, for example, is a punishing blast of evil darkness, while Nothing But War’s is a cacophonous hellfire of bone-crushing riffs, drums and soul-blackening vocals.

After the frenzied anti-requiem of Death Worship, in which angular riffs collide with growls of the most primal, guttural kind, there is, however, a slight moment of reprieve courtesy of the title-track. At over six minutes, it’s by far the longest song here, and it’s one that suddenly slows and quietens down halfway through for some minor-chord guitars as Travis LeSaffre of Boston hardcore outfit Sick Minds reads part of Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day, a poem by late American poet Delmore Schwartz. But then the darkness of night descends again, swallowing all lost souls in a frenzied crescendo of guitar and unholy vocals.

By comparison, the next song, Siege Fire is positively chipper, even if it writhes and pulsates in extreme agony for all of its 63 seconds. Rat King Crown brings it all to a particularly powerful and grotesque end, at which point the silence that follows is even more deafening that what preceded it. A blistering debut offering, but not one for the fainthearted. Those who dare, though – let it engulf you.

Verdict: 4/5

For fans of: Conjurer, Employed To Serve, Gojira

A Vision Of The End is out now

Read this: Conjurer: “Already, this band has come further than any of us thought was possible…”