Heaven Shall Burn - Iconoclast
Rating
RIYL
Fear My ThoughtsCaliban
As Hope Dies
Label
Century MediaTracklist
1. Awoken2. Endzeit
3. Like a Thousand Suns
4. Murderers of the Murderers
5. Forlorn Skies
6. A Dying Ember
7. Joel
8. Quest for Resistance
9. Black Tears
10. The Bombs of My Saviours
11. Against All Lies
12. The Disease
13. Equinox
14. Atonement
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Germany’s Heaven Shall Burn have been putting out quality metalcore since the late ‘90s, and with their newest offering, Iconoclast, they keep that tradition alive. Featuring 14 blistering tracks full of hardcore fury and crunching breakdowns complete with buzz saw guitar riffs, this album doesn’t fail to impress or keep you entertained.
Like many bands these days, Heaven Shall Burn start off their newest record with a somber piano/violin instrumental track. As you get lulled into a false sense of security, “Endziet” storms in and wrecks up the place -- complete metallic annihilation. Pummeling machine gun drums and fast melodic riffing are nearing the level of cliché in the music world, however Heaven Shall Burn make it work on some unexplainable level. The music is so tinged with melancholy and righteous fury that, even if you’re not sure what these guys are mad about, you feel compelled to agree with them.
Most of the album follows in the same tradition of hardcore tinged Gothenburg riffs, complete with some vicious screams from Marcus Bischoff. His voice is very much like fellow German metal act Fear My Thoughts’ vocalist Martin Fischer. The vocals on Iconoclast give it an identity beyond simple metalcore however. The sour shrieks define this band, much like Tomas Lindburg did for At The Gates or John Tardy for Obituary .
A standout track is the exceptional Edge of Sanity cover, “Black Tears”. I’d always wondered what that song would have sounded like if Dan Swano had decided to growl his way through the lyrics, and Heaven Shall Burn’s adaptation of the metal classic is a testament to their own skill and respect for those who came before.
This is an album that is not going to be universally accepted or appreciated. Metalcore is a blacklisted genre among today’s listeners but hopefully Heaven Shall Burn will start to change opinions. This is a very solid slab of some of the most entertaining and well constructed metalcore I’ve heard in a very long time.
--Ian Woods
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