The latest opus from Burning Point, this power metal band from Finland, is pretty much on par with their previous releases, while not being original in the least, the band can deliver some strong power metal songs in each of their albums.

Burning Point blend of Power Metal is, for the lack of a better word : unoriginal. Still they manage to write some good and enjoyable songs but do not expect this band to reinvent the wheel. My main complaint with the band is that most of their material sounds the same. I do not know how many albums I've missed from the last one I reviewed back in 2003, but I can tell you that I see very little difference in the material from this album. The album starts with quite a great song, probably one of the best of the album called Parasite. The song kicks in with a fast neo-classical guitar piece that you can find later on after choruses again, in the typical melodic power metal handbook :). The second track Heart Of Gold, reminds me of and Iced Earth's ballad / mid-tempo (like Melancholy or Watching Over Me but MUCH less powerful), maybe its the way its being sang (and the acoustic type guitar), and in the end this song, that has a calm and soft verse ends up having a stronger chorus part. The album has a few other good songs, like To Hell And Back & Hell Awaits (both very fast speed metal song), but the rest of the songs don't really stand out, and while not bad songs per say, they aren't thrilling either. My advice to Burning Point would be to concentrate their efforts on fast paced songs as its what they do best ! If the album contained 10 songs like To Hell and Back and Hell Awaits, then it would be much more interesting and I guess less boring at times. The problem with the mid-tempos and not so fast songs, is that they don't help carry a sense of speed and excitement, and in the end I find myself waiting for the fast tracks when I listen to Burning Point ! The album ends on a nice long epic piece bearing the name of the album, its a great song but I wouldn't have put it as the last track. I would typically have positioned this one right after the good opener song, to keep a good pace. But then again many bands keep a long epic song for the end and it kind of became a trend in Power Metal, so well, here we go again with the Power Metal textbook recipe.

In my opinion Burning Point never really took off since their debut and they keep delivering medium albums that have some great songs in them, and some not so great / fillers and a couple of plain boring songs. The problem is that maybe Burning Point is trying to deliver too much varied material for their own good. When Edguy delivers 4 speed metal songs, 3 mid-tempos, 1 ballad, and 2 joke songs, it works cause they know how to make each of these songs a masterpiece, and none are ever boring. With Burning Point, their strong suit in my opinion, is the fast paced song, and I would suggest they make an album containing 70-80% of those, and less mid-tempos and ballads. I think the result would be a much more attractive CD to many Power Metal fans. In the end I'm sure die hard fans of Burning Point will love this album, but if you don't know them yet, my advice is listen before you buy it, maybe you'll like it better than I do.