THE BURNING HELL play the Silver Dollar on April 29. See listing. Rating: NNNN
The Burning Hell’s sixth album, People, feels sophisticated. Though still underpinned by Mathias Kom’s lyrical ingenuity – which has been a band feature since its inception – the bombastic aural chaos of earlier albums has mostly given way here to subtler, stripped-down arrangements that allow his story songs to shine.
Currently based in St. John’s, the band recorded while on tour last summer in Berlin, and the record features European guests Clemence Freschard and Stanley Brinks (formerly of Herman Dune) as well as a five-person version of the ever-evolving group.
What links the songs together is their titles – each one is about a different kind of person – but you don’t need to know that to enjoy the album. Great bits of clarinet, sax, lap steel and xylophone dress up songs about mythological barbarians, falling in love at a dance bar and what happens at the brink of death, and the album closes with an epic singalong eulogy for industrialism.
Top track: Holidaymakers
