Last Great Sea (2002) is a three song release of previously recorded (well shottily that is) demo material from circa 1992. Burn formed in NY in 1988 and held together through '94. They have since come together in various forms and on occasion to re-record this material and release it through Revelation Records, and in 2001 recording and releasing the EP album Cleanse on Equal Vision Records. Burn is one of those special bands from my late adolescent and young adulthood days of gobbling up any sort of hardcore music I could find that has transcended my obsession at the time and remains equally rewarding to listen to today. My only contention with the band is that they released far to little material. Three EPs over the span of their existence. I believe I just tracked down their original EP formatted as an MP3 (the album was only released in vinyl) so that I can write about it in the future and put the material out there as well since it is long out of print. For the meantime I'll turn our attention to Last Great Sea, which is substantive record on its own, though not quite to the level of self-titled original EP. Chaka Malik's unique vocals are well recorded and his voice remains as strong as ever, carrying well over the music, but without being overbearing. The band stood apart from the typical NY hardcore band of the late 80s early 90s era in that it incorporated vast creativity within its songwriting. I've always thought of their sound to be of a heavier version of Quicksand. Of course drummer Alan Cage went on to play in Quicksand after Burn, so it's certainly not that far of a stretch.
Burn - Tales of Shatou
"Tales of Shatou" runs at a quicker pace than the other two songs on this EP. Probably the most similar to the typical chord progressions seen within the greater genre, particularly if you consider the year the song was written, of any of the Burn songs on this or the earlier album. Each Burn song stands out on its own, whether through some distinct set of lyrics delivered by Malik's powerful voice or some guitar hook. The tempo changes are all Burn. The break at about 1:40 is my favorite part with drum rolls and some sort of almost inverse guitar chord (whatever that means) progression, that then leads into a short guitar soloing and finally a breakdown and away of everything but minor percussion and bass. The end of the song builds back up to and closes strong.
It looks like Revelation has this album out of print as well as the first EP. So I'm going to post all three songs here for download if you want the whole thing. Amazon has a few copies for sale as well.
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