Burning the Lies contains tunes reminiscent of early New York City hardcore bands like
Youth of Today or Boston hardcore à la
Reach the Sky, but not quite as memorable. There's an occasional skatepunk guitar doodle here and there, but the vocals aren't nearly as keen as anything those seminal godfathers of old-school hardcore did. Lyrically, the band is treading the familiar old-school hardcore topics of broken friendships, holding on to one's beliefs, and fighting the system. There is a breath of excitement on
Burning the Lies, as occasionally an intelligent riff or catchy singalong will no doubt remind the ex-old-school kids why they got into hardcore in the first place. It can take a jaded old hardcore fan back down memory lane to see the Xs on the hands of the kids and lots of finger pointing in the photos. The CD contains 14 songs in 19 minutes and lots of singalongs, but besides the few classics, is there much of a reason to delve into this genre anymore? The lack of diversity in the sound is what caused old-school hardcore to mutate into other genres such as emo and the more metallic-sounding new-school hardcore. That being said, it seems somewhat redundant to churn out an album of 14 practically identical songs. ~ Kurt Morris