Burning Point - Feeding The Flames

*=Staff's pick	Into the Fire* Blackened the Sun* Veil of Secrecy Voice From the Past* I Am the Silent One Stray Bullet* Nightgames Quicker Than the Eye* Malmikivi Resurrection Machine All the Madness Feeding the Flames

Genre	Heavy Metal	Pete Ahonen	Vocals
Tracks	12	Pete Ahonen	Guitar
Runningtime	51 Min.	Jukka Kyrö	Guitar
Label	Limb Music	Toni Kansanoja	Bass
Release	24 March 2003	Jari Kaiponen	Drums
Country	Finland	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Dream Evil, Insania, Stormwind

Burning Point is yet another talanted band hailing from Finland, and this is their second album. The first one passed me totally unnoticed I am afraid, but not because of its musically offerings, because after having heard this I will certainly investigate what their debut have to offer. The band started under the name Planet Caravan, managed to bring on a deal with Limb Music in the year of 2001, and release the debut later the same year.

They play a very straight forward and melodic, yet heavy and riffbased metal, and it is all very groovy but there are a few too many songs on this album that lack something special to make this a release that stands out from many others out there.

The guitarwork is what appeals most to me on this album. Ahonen/Kyrö is a really good team with feeling for good melodies, and the guitarsound is very "smooth", which I like very much, and they have a certain ability to make the soloparts feel extremely "cozy" and smooth. Some persons have that gift to make their solos sound like they are the simplest things in the world to produce, and make it sound like they are smoothing your ears with a wellsmelling and refreshing balm, and this is such case. Influences that are mentioned in the bands own words are Yngwie Malmsteen, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and a piece of every mentioned band is represented but the most similarities can in my ears be drawn to modern bands like Dream Evil, Insania and Stormwind to give a few examples.

The album have more than a handful of fast and melodic tunes, but also a couple of standard, midtempo songs that falls a bit flat because they have very good parts, but tend to leave you with the feeling that so much more could have been made out of this. Quicker Than Eye is very catchy and is saved by a great songline, but I Am the Silent One and Veil Of Secrecy doesn't leave much marks in our metalhearts. When the songs are uptempo with great powerriffs and good refrians than they are very, very good, but there is a big part in the middle and the end of the album where it loses tempo a lot, and it floats out to "just" an average metalalbum.

The vocals lack a little bit of that extra "juice" that would do this good, but singer Ahonen's effort still pass a qualitytest by far. In my ears it's a mixture of Jeff Scott Soto and perhaps a better version of Blaze Baily, which of neither I am especially fond of - therefor the slightly restricted grade.

All in all a good and varied metalalbum, and if you like your metal in the veins of Dream Evil than this must be checked out by you. I have the feeling that is an album that can grow a lot on you, and I have found myself being right about that a lot of times so keep that in mind.

Production	Vocals	Compositions
8,5	8	8

Summary
7,5 chalices of 10 - Tommy