Holy Roar’s Burning Vow Transfix The Listener With Towering Self Titled Doom Metal Debut

Burning Vow know how to hit the listener for maximum effect on their debut self titled full length, out December 14 via Holy Roar Records. The band’s sonically massive brand of menacing metal music could at different times be categorized as sludge, doom, and so on, but most importantly, their unifying force rolls the songs right into the listener as if the manifestation of a boulder rolling down a mountainside.

The band’s songs feel straightforward at times, with a no frills approach to their riffing that serves up the main attraction front and center — to bring the metaphor a little more down to earth. The band embrace the fundamentals of their craft with an apparent confidence that translates into inescapably impressive music.

Concurrently, the vocals remain poignantly accessible and similarly straightforward, almost calling a classic or gothic feel to mind. They’re delivered cleanly, but looks can be deceiving, and dismissing the record as simple would be a grave mistake.

There’s a striking duality at play, since as easily as the band members serve up comprehensible song patterns with repeating riffs, they knock the listener off their feet with their rising tide of intensity. Within the just five songs, there’s a massive musical landscape just waiting to be explored that feels as though it extends for the length of many more tracks than are presented. There are worlds within this world of music — which itself feels very tied to our own.

Returning to the straightforward side to the band’s work, the lyrics bemoan very tangible issues rocking the globe today like environmental degradation and our more general endless attraction to self destruction.

In this element to their music, Burning Vow end up drawing the listener into their whirlpool. Just as it’s difficult to escape the confines of our tangible existences — mountains aren’t made of modeling clay and we can’t push them out of the way, and issues like environmental change won’t vanish because we ignore them — it’s difficult to escape the magnanimity of Burning Vow’s music. In the end, it feels as though the band’s and world’s poles of hugeness feed into each other, and the product — Burning Vow‘s run time — elevates our existences as listeners.

5/5 Stars

Check it out below.

Holy Roar posted a full album stream ahead of release on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8DgzYpV3eg&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR1z-G7cMHQOx7FV7NXJEi3eQrfFf-luSVg9-rWnMGjd4utWk6vhIm0pby8