Henry Rollins is back -- just as soul searching, self loathing, and muscle-bound as ever. "Come In and Burn" is a collection of a dozen Rollins tunes that as usual lead us to question our own morality and intentions. This is familiar ground to listeners of Henry’s previous rants, so unfortunately there is little new territory covered on this latest album. That doesn’t mean that Burn is not worth listening to though. Many bands play the same song, so to speak, over and over again with pleasurable results. Rollins Band is one of them.
The music on Burn is much like the band’s frontman: powerful but restrained by too much thought and introspection. Many of the songs feel overproduced, with too many layers of sound piled one on top of the other. The underlying beat is muscular, and would knock you over if it wasn’t for the constant echo and reverb effects that dilute the potential energy of the songs. Despite this, a fair amount of pounding strength remains intact. Rollins' vocals are often punchy enough to carry the songs along, as is the case on "On My Way to The Cage" and "All I Want". Even so, this new batch of angst just doesn't match his best songs like "Tearing" off "End Of Silence". Many of the songs on Burn have no hook to them, and just seem to have nothing to hang on to or remember.
Henry is as angry as ever, and the band he has chosen is adept at expressing it. They are very talented musicians, but a more stripped down sound would have given this album the power surge that it needs. Burn has neither the commercial accessibility of "Weight", nor the heavy licks of "End Of Silence". It lies somewhere in between, and suffers for it. A few shining moments make this album worth purchasing, but it simply doesn’t hold up to comparison to the band’s other masterpieces. Burn falls just shy of achieving the cathartic release that one usually gets after listening to some potent Rollins’ songs. If you’ve never listened to Rollins’ Band before, you shouldn’t be disappointed by this album, and die hard fans will still enjoy Henry’s ravings, but neither old nor new will be blown away by Come In And Burn.
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