Burn Burn: The Reviews

Shanae · Post by **Shanae** » 8/11/2009, 8:07 pm

For some reason, whenever I think of Paper Moon, I hear "When you try your best and don't succeed..."

Driven · Post by **Driven** » 8/14/2009, 12:21 pm

When the dust settles a year from now, Burn Burn will be considered better than Healthy for sure. What happened here is that people got all excited for Burn Burn, overrated it, then overplayed it, and then you pop in Healthy for the first time in a while and that album is fresh (or any album for that matter).

Codes · Post by **Codes** » 8/15/2009, 5:07 am

I don't need to wait to know its a better album then the last two, Paper moon, Monkey brains, and Escape artist by themselves make me like this cd more. They could have made the cd of those 3 songs

RileyLewis · Post by **RileyLewis** » 8/15/2009, 12:56 pm

Yeah. I look at this CD as a merger of two CDs.

Monkey Brains
Escape Artist
Refuge
Paper Moon

and then the rest. Maybe White Flags in the top list as well as Dreamland, if they had a little more raw power and were less poppy.

Johnny · Post by **Johnny** » 8/17/2009, 3:20 pm

I like Escape Artist and Paper Moon. The other songs, not so much.

My main annoyance is with Raine's vocal technique. He just sounds so dull, flat, bored, lazy and uninspiried while singing. Its like he couldn't be bothered and would rather be somewhere else.

MindsOnLoan · Post by **MindsOnLoan** » 8/17/2009, 7:06 pm

Johnny wrote:I like Escape Artist and Paper Moon. The other songs, not so much.

My main annoyance is with Raine's vocal technique. He just sounds so dull, flat, bored, lazy and uninspiried while singing. Its like he couldn't be bothered and would rather be somewhere else.

Johnny was... positive?

Johnny · Post by **Johnny** » 8/17/2009, 8:50 pm

I like two songs off of crapity and hpit as well. I still despise those albums, and this latest one isn't that far behind.

MindsOnLoan · Post by **MindsOnLoan** » 8/17/2009, 8:53 pm

What songs might those be?

Johnny · Post by **Johnny** » 8/17/2009, 8:54 pm

Bring Back The Sun/Not Enough and ALS/Al-Genina

Lando · Post by **Lando** » 8/18/2009, 1:53 am

So I listened to this album for the first time and while my opinion will change while I get to know the album a bit better, the one thing I can now say is I, (along with other OLP fans) was wrong about The Right Stuff. It would've been a WAY better single than AYD. It's poppy and not lyrically what I love about my favourite era of OLP, but it's by far the catchiest and most up tempo energetic song... They even filmed a video and it's only considered a bonus song? I wonder if all the negative fan reactions from the live versions had anything to do with that... if so... damn, that was a mistake on our parts because the album could draw a lot of radio play and a lot of casual listeners from this song... Maybe I started to like it because the first time I heard the studio version was while watching the music video which greatly reminds me of Stanley Kubric's Eyes Wide Shut. If that's not cool, I don't know what is! It's not a great or spectacularly unique video (because of it's carbon copy similarity to Eyes Wide Shut), but that's also why I like it, because it has nostalgic value, not related to OLP, but to Kubric.

That's a good thing considering my favourite song is Paper Moon and that song has the same nostalgic value to old OLP which I love dearly like many of us do. I think it's the fact that Raine's actually singing from the throat and hitting some higher notes which I believe his voice does well. I'm not talking about he used to do the crazy high note falsetto, which a lot of fans really loved because it was so unique and identifiable as Raine's trademark in a lot of ways, but when you sing higher, it's from the throat and it sounds like he's putting effort or emotion into it during this song. He's not always so monotone and singing deeper from the chest.

Unfortunately, most of the songs he sings on this album are exactly like that. It feels like he's so disconnected from them and is just singing because he has to. However, to be fair, you have to take into account that he's doing multiple jobs with the recording, engineering and mixing of all the tracks. For instance, on the 2nd disc (DVD) of the album during the studio tracks, you can see how focused he is on the sound he's hearing through the headphones.

I can actually relate, because when filming I often have to pay attention closely to make sure there are no audio problems and I do a lot of outdoor/public location filming, so there's always background noise. When you get too focused on listening so carefully to something, you lose a lot of the emotion/creativity for your visual work. It's tough to balance multiple things with great results. It would be the same in a recording studio. If he just let loose and didn't worry about being a methodical vocalist and just went with raw energy and emotion, things might've taken a hell of a lot longer for Raine in post production. Probably a lot more recording takes would've added a lot of hours too... However I think that people can connect to emotion in a song/vocals and can actually feel a band's attachment to the music. It just comes through somehow and listeners detect it. In my opinion that's always going to have a bigger impact on people than making sure everything about a recording, vocal or even instrumental track is perfect and precise. That's when things start to sound a bit uninspired and unfortunately, to me, Raine sounds uninspired and detached emotionally from the vocals on this album. He had a lot to look after and I think that really hurts the final product. I could go on, but for now I'll leave it at that.

Illusion · Post by **Illusion** » 8/20/2009, 12:53 am

Johnny wrote:I like Escape Artist and Paper Moon. The other songs, not so much.

My main annoyance is with Raine's vocal technique. He just sounds so dull, flat, bored, lazy and uninspiried while singing. Its like he couldn't be bothered and would rather be somewhere else.

Hey Johnny, what did you think about Monkey Brains? Personally, I would throw that one in with one of the "good ones" as well...I thought it had cryptic lyrics along with a bit of experimentation as well as some heavy guitar riffs that we haven't seen since Gravity.

That said, I completely agree with you about Paper Moon and Escape Artist; they were definitely two highlights on the album. Sometimes when I hear the chorus in EA, I think I'm even listening to Happiness for a moment (however brief).

laurel · Post by **laurel** » 8/20/2009, 8:05 am

Monkey Brains is so poopy.

RileyLewis · Post by **RileyLewis** » 8/20/2009, 9:41 am

And Jeremy's mom likes it.

I've settled now on Paper Moon as my favourite Burn Burn track. It has a nice beat, better emotion than the other songs, a catchy chorus, nice guitar work, and just a nice general feel to it.

It's funny that someone said Escape Artist could fit on Happiness. I feel that Signs of Life is a Spiritual Machines style track. I'm not a huge fan of it, though.

LifeRiot · Post by **LifeRiot** » 8/20/2009, 9:48 am

I don't think any of these songs could fit on a past record. But that is the usual with OLP. Nothing sounds like it could fit anywhere else. Superman's Dead couldn't go on Spiritual Machines. OMA couldn't go on Clumsy. It all has it's own feel to it.

Jamie_M · Post by **Jamie_M** » 8/20/2009, 10:55 am

I think that your comment is right on the money.

Lando wrote:Unfortunately, most of the songs he sings on this album are exactly like that. It feels like he's so disconnected from them and is just singing because he has to. However, to be fair, you have to take into account that he's doing multiple jobs with the recording, engineering and mixing of all the tracks. For instance, on the 2nd disc (DVD) of the album during the studio tracks, you can see how focused he is on the sound he's hearing through the headphones.

I can actually relate, because when filming I often have to pay attention closely to make sure there are no audio problems and I do a lot of outdoor/public location filming, so there's always background noise. When you get too focused on listening so carefully to something, you lose a lot of the emotion/creativity for your visual work. It's tough to balance multiple things with great results. It would be the same in a recording studio. If he just let loose and didn't worry about being a methodical vocalist and just went with raw energy and emotion, things might've taken a hell of a lot longer for Raine in post production. Probably a lot more recording takes would've added a lot of hours too... However I think that people can connect to emotion in a song/vocals and can actually feel a band's attachment to the music. It just comes through somehow and listeners detect it. In my opinion that's always going to have a bigger impact on people than making sure everything about a recording, vocal or even instrumental track is perfect and precise. That's when things start to sound a bit uninspired and unfortunately, to me, Raine sounds uninspired and detached emotionally from the vocals on this album. He had a lot to look after and I think that really hurts the final product. I could go on, but for now I'll leave it at that.

In the CNN interview, this is what Steve said:
“Well, we produced this record ourselves. I mean Raine produced it and we lent a hand. And, ahh, one important role a producer plays is always being the outside opinion that’s not as attached to the music. So, ahh, we would leave every one of those ten day sessions, but we wouldn’t take them – the stuff - with us to listen to."

So while the record might be ‘uncompromised’ according to Raine, I’m not sure that by self-producing they can be as artistic and passionate and creative as they once were.

OLPManiac · Post by **OLPManiac** » 8/20/2009, 11:36 am

I think that Monkey Brains and Paper Moon have got a good potential like singles...I hope that Paper Moon is the choice of OLP...but for me they choose Monkey Brains...

m2 · Post by m2 » 8/20/2009, 12:29 pm

Did the site crash?!?!? I couldn't get on for a while.

ClumsyGirl618 · Post by **ClumsyGirl618** » 8/20/2009, 1:08 pm

I had a problem with it too... for about 10 minutes it didn't work! Fail.

RileyLewis · Post by **RileyLewis** » 8/20/2009, 4:52 pm

OLPManiac, I would also love it if Paper Moon were a single.

Codes · Post by **Codes** » 8/21/2009, 10:57 am

maybe once "TEIWWB" fails on the charts they will finally listen?