In less than four years, Burn It Down (comprised of Ryan Downey, vocals, Brian "Bob" Fouts, drums, John Zeps, guitar, and Jason McCash, bass) have evolved from a fledgling hardcore/metal unit with a plethora of unrealised potential and ideas, to emerge as one of the brightest hopes in the underground with their latest release, Let The Dead Bury The Dead (Escape Artist). While few expected Burn It Down to create such a textured, mature, dynamic and punishing album so early in their relatively young existence, fewer still could have imagined that Burn It Down would tackle the treacherous task of birthing a concept album with their debut full-length.
"Many records are just collections of songs, snapshots of bands," comments Ryan Downey. "We sat down and said, Let's write an entire album.' I had been listening perhaps a little too heavily to Chemical Wedding [Bruce Dickinson] and Dreaming Neon Black [Nevermore] and I said, concept album!' and the rest of the band went, What will hardcore kids say?' But we grew up on Dimention Hatross [Voivod], Seventh Son of a Seventh Son [Iron Maiden] and Operation: Mindcrime [Queensrÿche] and we thought that we could pull it off."
The result is a concept album as dark, brooding, volatile and introspective as the music, without either alienating the listener or being too sublime, one of the few concept albums to match mood, music and content perfectly while allowing outside interpretations. "I wanted to construct a story that would get some of my major views about the fundamentals of human existence across," Ryan explains. "[Let ] tells the story of a women who dies, of her journey through this spirit world.' She goes through and observes various things and comes to various conclusions. The main idea is that there are different kinds of life and death, there's physical life and death but there are plenty of people today who wander around more or less dead. They are machines, chemical combinations that have deadened anything spiritual, living or compassionate inside themselves for the sake of either getting over on other people or just getting by. I feel I am one of those people and I'm trying to wake myself up and wake other people."
"Many records are just collections of songs, snapshots of bands," comments Ryan Downey. "We sat down and said, Let's write an entire album.' I had been listening perhaps a little too heavily to Chemical Wedding [Bruce Dickinson] and Dreaming Neon Black [Nevermore] and I said, concept album!' and the rest of the band went, What will hardcore kids say?' But we grew up on Dimention Hatross [Voivod], Seventh Son of a Seventh Son [Iron Maiden] and Operation: Mindcrime [Queensrÿche] and we thought that we could pull it off."
The result is a concept album as dark, brooding, volatile and introspective as the music, without either alienating the listener or being too sublime, one of the few concept albums to match mood, music and content perfectly while allowing outside interpretations. "I wanted to construct a story that would get some of my major views about the fundamentals of human existence across," Ryan explains. "[Let ] tells the story of a women who dies, of her journey through this spirit world.' She goes through and observes various things and comes to various conclusions. The main idea is that there are different kinds of life and death, there's physical life and death but there are plenty of people today who wander around more or less dead. They are machines, chemical combinations that have deadened anything spiritual, living or compassionate inside themselves for the sake of either getting over on other people or just getting by. I feel I am one of those people and I'm trying to wake myself up and wake other people."