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No Innocent Victim - To Burn Again

 

	RELEASED: November 8th, 2005 PRODUCER: LABEL:Facedown Records BAND:Jason Moody Tim Mason Dave Quiggle Neil Hartman Jason Dunn
+ Old-school feel, Uncompromising lyrics, Energy - Some songs work better than others, Some choppy songwriting	TRACKS: 1. To Burn Again 2.Set Apart 3.Life Debt 4.Your Freedom 5.Where’s Your Heart 6.To The Death 7.Cut It Off 8.Stand 9.Bring Them Back 10.Ready To Fight 11.Open 12.Paid In Full 13.Not Guilty 14. Highly Flammable

OVERVIEW

NIV is back!  Holy crap!  And….

….well, they pretty much sound like they never left. Anyone who knows anything about hardcore knows that NIV is a rare sort of animal – a vicious, crunchy, in-your-face Christian hardcore band that’s just as respected in the secular scene as with their Christian audience.  Now that’s an accomplishment, if you ask me.  After touring with hardcore mainstays like Agnostic Front, Hatebreed, and Terror and making a name for themselves as a band that not only cranked out some brutal hardcore, but also never compromising their unapologetic Christian message, it was somewhat of a bummer when NIV decided to hang up their guitars in 2002. Fast forward to ’05, where their original lineup (with the exception of new bassist Neil Harman, formerly xDisciplexAD) jumps back into the studio and cranks out “To Burn Again”, a slamfest of 14 bruising hardcore tracks that make it loud and clear that NIV isn’t here to screw with trends – you won’t find any lame pseudo-Gothenburg guitar work or whiny emo crap on this record, just good old-fashioned, straight-up metal-edged hardcore that made NIV famous in the first place.  On the downside, this also means that, especially for the uninitiated, a lot of this record can come off sounding like the same 2-minute slam-bang-breakdown over and over.  Fans will love it, and with good reason, cause it’s darn solid, but it definitely won’t win any new fans.

SONGS

“To Burn Again” actually starts off on a bit of a weaker track, in my opinion – the title track just doesn’t seem to hit that hard, at least until the breakdown, which is where NIV really gets back into what they do best.  Oddly enough, “Set Apart” basically works really well as a 2nd half of “To Burn Again”, lyrically and musically.  Makes me wonder why they didn’t just make it one song.  At any rate, “Life Debt” does a great job mixing up a couple riffs to make a good song out of it, and NIV’s rare use of clean vocals works really well here.  “Your Freedom” is another speedy bruiser, and “Where’s Your Heart” is just as fast, with great lyrics about living an authentic life.  “To The Death” is another odd instance where it probably should have been tacked onto the previous song as a breakdown, which brings us to “Cut It Off” a punk-ish number that’s one of my favorites on here.  “Stand” works mostly because of its lyrics, and “Bring Them Back” is straight up brutal – see if a crowd doesn’t go from 0 to circle pit in record time when this one comes on.  “Ready to Fight” is another speedy number with a feel that’s really similar to “Bring Them Back”, but that’s no bad thing, and this song is easily another one of my favorites.  “Open” is a smart pacing choice, as it slows things down a bit (relatively speaking, this IS still hardcore, people), and “Paid in Full” lets you know that NIV is still, first and foremost, a band with a message.  “Not Guilty” takes the cake for longest track on here at an incredible 2:53, and the closer “Highly Flammable” is more of the same, but it sends the record out with a track that’s undeniably NIV and works out alright.

CONCLUSION

I like this record a lot, but at the end of the day I have to rate it 3/5 cause that’s exactly what it is – solid.  It’s a welcome presence in modern hardcore, where it kind of seems like lately everyone’s just trying to duplicate bands like Hatebreed, but it’s not a genre re-definer or anything.  Basically, if you liked NIV before, you’ll dig this record a lot, and if you don’t like hardcore, this won’t be the record that changes your mind.

 

Review by Matt Rewinski

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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