Open up the liner notes of Burnt By The Suns Soundtrack To The Personal Revolution (Relapse) and youll discover something revolutionary: each song is prefaced by a significant quote from a movie (Fight Club, Happy Gilmore, Trading Places, A Bronx Tale). I used films like Fight Club because people are familiar with them, explains front-man Michael Olender. I wanted to make the album relatable, as opposed to using a Spanish film that no ones seen.
Burnt By the Sun is trying to make their brand of revolution accessible. Continuing the New Jersey tradition of innovative metal/hardcore acts (Dillinger Escape Plan, Deadguy, Rorschach), BBTS had fans and label reps frothing, with only seven songs from two EPs in circulation last year. Featuring drum deity Dave Witte (Discordance Axis), their highly anticipated debut full-length packs manic tempo shifts, massive grindcore grooves and varied vocal assaults all set within a bed of lyrical content thats intelligent as it is vitriolic. The concept of the lyrics referring to a personal revolution actually working in the whole soundtrack theme together in a cinematic package worked out very well, observes Olender.
The revolution message is deeper, though: its about breaking out of the stereotypes that movies impose on us. Famke [named after Famke Janssen of X-Men and Goldeneye] relates to this illusion that people have where they get caught up in entertainment media to the point that they look at someone like Famke, in all her beauty and perfection, and set that as the standard in their lives. As the quote from Fight Club implies, youre slowly learning thats not the case.
Dow Jones And The Temple Of Doom takes a similar tack with a quote from activist author Howard Zinn. People work so hard to reach some kind of ideal for themselves, like having a nice furnished house or a car that looks better than their neighbours. Then theyll buy into this logic that well, since the Dow Jones average is going down, I must be totally and completely depressed. Everybodys freaking out like its the biggest event ever, but its largely irrelevant to the average person.
Olender is not a wannabe politician, however. You could look at Dow Jones and think, Okay, this person is saying materialisms bad, but actually I wrote the song after my girlfriend and I moved into a new apartment. We were out looking for a new couch and suddenly I found myself getting all stressed out: does everything match? We all need to enjoy life, but [materialism] is not going to make you happy.
Burnt By the Sun is trying to make their brand of revolution accessible. Continuing the New Jersey tradition of innovative metal/hardcore acts (Dillinger Escape Plan, Deadguy, Rorschach), BBTS had fans and label reps frothing, with only seven songs from two EPs in circulation last year. Featuring drum deity Dave Witte (Discordance Axis), their highly anticipated debut full-length packs manic tempo shifts, massive grindcore grooves and varied vocal assaults all set within a bed of lyrical content thats intelligent as it is vitriolic. The concept of the lyrics referring to a personal revolution actually working in the whole soundtrack theme together in a cinematic package worked out very well, observes Olender.
The revolution message is deeper, though: its about breaking out of the stereotypes that movies impose on us. Famke [named after Famke Janssen of X-Men and Goldeneye] relates to this illusion that people have where they get caught up in entertainment media to the point that they look at someone like Famke, in all her beauty and perfection, and set that as the standard in their lives. As the quote from Fight Club implies, youre slowly learning thats not the case.
Dow Jones And The Temple Of Doom takes a similar tack with a quote from activist author Howard Zinn. People work so hard to reach some kind of ideal for themselves, like having a nice furnished house or a car that looks better than their neighbours. Then theyll buy into this logic that well, since the Dow Jones average is going down, I must be totally and completely depressed. Everybodys freaking out like its the biggest event ever, but its largely irrelevant to the average person.
Olender is not a wannabe politician, however. You could look at Dow Jones and think, Okay, this person is saying materialisms bad, but actually I wrote the song after my girlfriend and I moved into a new apartment. We were out looking for a new couch and suddenly I found myself getting all stressed out: does everything match? We all need to enjoy life, but [materialism] is not going to make you happy.
