Burn The Day - 2023 - Drive​-​By

(42:44; M&O Music)






















Track list:
1. Missing 4:15
2. Outside 3:35
3. Black Sheep 3:44
4. More Than Blood 4:23
5. Be My Roots 4:36
6. Selfish 3:55
7. No Shame 4:10
8. Can't Buy It 3:45
9. Write Your Own Story 3:11
10. Dog's Loyalty 3:34
11. Through Your Eyes 3:36

Line-up:
Rémy Planson - vocals, guitars
Laurent Planson - drums
François Delclaux - bass


French band Burn The Day have been around for a decade or thereabouts with brothers Remy and Laurent Planson as the driving force of the band. Bassist François Delclaux joined the band in 2016. The band released their debut album "Drive-By" through French label M&O Music at the start of 2023.

The influence of grunge and alternative rock is highlighted in the label page bio for this band, and that comes with good reason. The album opens and concludes with songs that come with a strong and distinct Nirvana feel to them, and it is crystal clear that this is a band that thrives in this particular landscape. Vocalist Remy has a slightly sleepy voice that is very much of a similar character to Kurt Cobain, and the band as a unit are well equipped to switch back and forth between gentle but vibrant verse parts and more powerful and riff driven chorus sections, and Remy pulls off some fine flowing guitar solo sections on these songs too.

While grunge details is a part of the rest of this album too, most of the other songs comes with a stronger orientation towards pop punk, at least to my ears, with some details here and there pulled in from indie rock and AOR style hard rock, with bands like R.E.M. and Bon Jovi associations I took note of for these latter details.

For me at least these songs don't manage to quite reach the levels of the more distinctly Nirvana and grunge oriented songs. The compositions lack a bit in the dynamics department here, the contrasting features aren't as audible nor as elegant, and while powerful the songs don't have that vibrant, energetic drive that songs of this nature need to have for me to take a greater interest in them. For my personal taste in music I also think that the vocals need a bit more energy when exploring these particular landscapes, as for me pop punk and alternative rock of this kind is a style of music that needs energy and a more distinct emotional vocal delivery in general.

For me "Drive-By" is a pleasant album with a foundation in pop punk and alternative rock landscapes, where the clear highlights are the songs with a stronger grunge orientation in general, where the songs closing in on the style and orientation of Nirvana are a cut above the rest of the material provided. Which for me makes this a bit more of a niche production, where those with a more passionate interest for both pop punk and grunge will be something of a key audience.

Olav M. Björnsen, February 2023

Links:
https://www.facebook.com/burntheday
https://www.m-o-music.com/

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