Customer Reviews

Burn Burn

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I will start off by saying that I am slightly disappointed with the CD (why 4-stars then? read on). It does not compare to a lot of their previous work, but I think there is reason for this.

I was somewhat aware of OLP when Naveed came out, but it wasn't until Clumsy came out in 1997 that OLP became my favorite band. I have seen them 8 or 9 times live since then, and for the most part, they have been my favorite band for 12 years.

To me, OLP's musical timeline looks just like a bell curve. Naveed was good...with Clumsy, they started to tap into what made them great. I think that musically, lyrically, conceptually, Happiness And Spiritual Machines are their peak. Those 2 CDs were superb, my 2 favorite albums of all time for any band. This is where the band starts to slip. Maybe it was just age, maybe the creative juices dried up, maybe it was because Mike Turner took his songwriting style with him when he left. But Gravity is a great rock record, it just wasn't a great OLP record. Paranoid was the same, but more so. It was a good CD, but less OLP than before, further down from the top or the curve. As every die-hard fan of any band does, when I hear that a new OLP CD comes out, I always have high hopes..."maybe this one will be just like Happiness..., or Spiritual Machines." But its not.

Think about this though...when they were writing Naveed and Clumsy, these guys were in their mid 20's. Now, soon to be 40, their perspective on life is different. There is less immediacy and raw emotion in someone who is 40 with kids than a young, hungry 25 year old. I think that comes across in the music. Think about most bands who have lasted longer than a decade in the music business. Is their 10th album ever even close to the first couple? As a function of becoming more mature, you lose a little of the edge.

All this being said, I believe that this new CD is a good rock record with catchy melodies and some interesting song structure that is pretty well put together. If I wanted to turn a non-OLP fan onto the band, I would never hand them this CD. Its not Vintage OLP, and we most likely wont see that ever again, but as one of the other reviewers said "some OLP is better than no OLP." Very true statement.

Forget all the talk about "selling out" and this album sounding too "mainstream." With every album release there's always going to be someone making those claims.

Truth be told for a Rock album, this isn't great. It's average at best. For an Our Lady Peace album this album is simply disappointing and bland. As a rock album I give it 3 stars, but compared to the other OLP CD's I'd give this 1 star out of 5 because it's by far my least favorite album of theirs thus far. The album lacks any sort of musical teeth. It's just melodic drivel with Raine's unique vocals placed...and I do mean "placed" on top. This is a band capable of a very driving and unique biting sound. Raine's unique falsetto, completely absent on this album. Raine's vocals on this CD sound uninspired and absent of emotion. He's just singing words placed over the most basic rock sound. The bands hard driving rock sound...also gone.

The most disappointing thing about this CD is it could have been released by ANY rock band, but fortunately it's Our Lady Peace....which is all that saves it for me. Because to me, even a bad Our Lady Peace CD is better than a lot of rock that's out there.

I'm still holding out hope that the band will rediscover the majic of their earlier work. Like many of the reviewers, I've been a fan since the beginning, getting hooked immediately with Naveed and watching them grow sonically and musically with each album through Spiritual Machines. I was able to see them live on that tour and was able to see them at their peak. I heard an interview with Raine on XM last winter in which he mentioned that the band nearly broke up while making the new album. I wanted to believe that they were getting back to their roots with a stripped down sound as they announced on their site but knew what was coming when I heard the uninspired single. Like the other huge OLP fans that have written reviews, it's so hard not to compare the current CDs with the absolutely brilliant music that they put out in the 1990's. Dreamland, Refuge and Paper Moon are good songs but when you put them up against their earlier work, there is no comparison. Steve Mazur is an excellent guitarist but I agree that they lost a lot of their soul when Mike Turner left the band and I would love to see what would come out of a reuniting of the original band. With the release of the Greatest Hits CD and the long wait for Burn Burn, I was afraid that we had seen the last of them. Despite being underwhelmed with the new material, I'm grateful that there is still hope of great Our Lady Peace music sometime soon.

This album seems to lack Raine's falsetto singing, the cynical lyrics, and the edginess that defines Our Lady Peace musically. I'd probably skip this release if you are an Our Lady Peace fan. It just doesn't really sound like them. Three stars simply because Our Lady Peace on their worst days are still better than 95% of the other alternative bands out there.

As an owner of every Our Lady Peace album and an attendee of a multitude of live performances, I hate to give Burn Burn my honest review: meh. It's not bad, but it's not what I used to expect from OLP. I've noticed something important about my listening habits. Naveed, Clumsy, and Happiness all stayed in my CD player/playlists for years and still grace my speakers frequently. Spiritual Machines and Gravity were different, but they still had some powerful moments and I still listen to them as well. Healthy was interesting, but it lacked something. I listened to it a few times after I bought it, but I haven't put it in since.

I forced myself to listen to Burn Burn five times out of pure loyalty. Like I said, it's not bad, but there's nothing powerful or interesting here. This is elevator music compared to Naveed. I know that bands evolve, but I'm bored. I don't see myself listening to this album any more.

If you are new to Our Lady Peace, go buy the earlier albums.

**PREFACE** - Our Lady Peace is by far my favorite artist, I've pretty much listened to ONLY them for the past 2 years straight.

My 2/5 stars is based on a combination of my rating of the album against any other music out there, and against previous Our Lady Peace works. Against all other material, I would rate this 3.5/5, but against previous Our Lady Peace material, I would give it at best 2/5, probably 1.5/5.

Ever since this band decided to go for the mainstream BS back in 2001, things have gone downhill. Their first album under this moniker, Gravity, was still a great album because the energy was there -- lead singer Raine Maida's voice had lost its falsetto screech but was still emotional. By the next album in 2005, Healthy in Paranoid Times, his voice continued to decrease in emotion and notability.

This album, Raine's voice is just utterly disappointing. I could sing better than this. I've had friends ask me whether it's the same guy singing in Burn Burn as it was in the old albums. They're convinced that it can't be the same person. Sadly, it is the same person. What happened to Raine's voice, we'll never know.

The songs on this album are for damn teenyboppers, not for the hundreds of thousands of fans they've gathered since their 1994 debut that enjoy their REAL music. I don't understand their newfound fascination with ballads and formulaic generic crap music? It really, really makes me sad. But alas, it's still Our Lady Peace and I will always listen to anything they release, they're my favorite band.

I was first introduced to Our Lady Peace through their album Clumsy in high school, and thinking that was an awesome album. I then consequently bought the rest of their albums as they came out, and Naveed used from an old record shop. I only remember being somewhat unhappy with Healthy In Paranoid Times, but still found some gems in it, and thought that was as low as it would go. Wrong!! Burn Burn is not what I expected or wanted from Our Lady Peace. I liked their rock albums the best; great lyrics, kickass drums & guitars riffs that would make you beg for more! Burn Burn may well be THE LAST Our Lady Peace album I ever buy, unless they were to go back to their good rock style. Bring back Toronto Rock!

I just gotta ask ya Raine, what the hell happened to OLP?!

I've spend my cash on the music over the years. I have every album that has been released, even the mainstream, radio-friendly "Gravity" and "Healthy in Paranoid Times"...but this...this ain't even worth keeping, honey!

I received the disc in the mail yesterday and popped it into the car cd player. A short 15 minute drive later I was already through the drivel and gave up on it.

My friend who I was riding with, who never heard anything from this amazing group, seemed slightly offended that I wanted to keep listening after the first few tracks. I had to poke her in the ribs so she wouldn't drive off the road, too!

I kept listening though, listening for ANYTHING that I could say, "Now THIS is OLP!". That came with the song "Monkey Brains" but even that song was a far and distant cry from the amazing albums of OLP past. Any long time fan of this group KNOWS the albums I'm speaking of as well.

If you're into shallow, un-enthusiastic, un-inspired, teenie-bopper crap music...you know...the kind where you're laying in bed staring at your pink colored ceiling and thinking, "Wow...Raine must be singing this song to me, he's so CUTE *teehee!!!!*" then by all means buy this album. Or just let me know, you can HAVE mine!

Please...just make this crappy album go away...

After listening through the album several times, it's clear that OLP's latest is far and away their worse. I give it two stars simply because the music is coherent, but in comparison with Naveed or Spiritual Machines it probably deserves negative stars. After the opening track, which is at very best mediocre, the album goes incredibly downhill and I had to fight myself not to turn it off. Each song is as shallow, simple, and utterly forgettable. The only track that has a distinct Our Lady Peace feel is the watered-down Paper Moon (the only song where he hits falsetto?), and at that point it's too little too late. I mean, for a band that originally caught my ear because it had such a unique sound, how in god's name did they put out a CD that bleeds generic?

Our Lady Peace has one of the strangest discographies of any band I've heard. Their songs go from being post-grunge anthems to melodramatic pieces about finding and losing love. From the beginning, Burn Burn was conceived as a bands return to form, a harckening back to the louder sounds of the band's first album, Naveed. Did they succeed? Well, yes and no.

The first track of the album begins with radio friendly "All You Did was Save My Life". While the song is good in its own right, the main problem with the track is that there is nothing very impressive or interesting about the melody or the lyrics. For a band known for their poetic and complex song writing, this song really falls flat. In fairness, it's catchy as hell and pretty easy to digest. It's harmless, if a bit shallow.

The rest of album, however, is something I didn't expect. Though some songs do contain some bland songwriting (particularly "Never Get Over You"), the album is really well produced, and the songs all flow extremely well. After reaction to Healthy in Paranoid Times, it's clear that Our Lady Peace really made this one for the fans. Fans of Happiness... and Clumsy will find themselves in familiar territory with tracks like Monkey Brains and Dreamland. Newcomers, however, might be turned off by the strange compositions (especially with Monkey Brains).

My only real complaint with the album is from its shortness. Clocking in at ten tracks, the album barely manages to break forty minutes. Come on, really? The band spent over two years making this album, and while the tracks on here are very well produced, it's criminal to make it this short. Perhaps if it hadn't taken so long I'd be more forgiving, but this really is a huge complaint. Thankfully, the deluxe edition adds two more tracks, but it still feels incomplete.

In spite of all these complaints, this is a very good album, and marks Our Lady Peace's return to form after the... "different" phase comprised of Gravity and Healthy in Paranoid Times. If you're an Our Lady Peace fan, you should already own this, but if you're new to the band, this album is one of the easier ones to jump into.

Overall, it's a buy. The tracks are well done, catchy, and above all else, fun to listen to. Just don't expect it to last very long.