Sinner - Crash and Burn

June 8, 2009

Reviewer: Ilmarinen

Every so often comes a band that is so deeply rooted in some classic rock movement, they not only borrow elements from the genre, they revisit it. Sometimes this approach may leave little room for innovation. Results, as you may notice from personal experience, may vary.

In some instances these revisionist bands serve as ingenious reminders of past glories and musical triumphs. It happens occasionally that a genre or a niche, a sub-genre if you will, may have been treated unfairly by time, swallowed whole by undeservedly larger trends, and quietly forgotten only to be dusted off once in a great while to be re-inspected in a quaint fashion. Then some band comes along that is sufficiently potent to dazzle us with that old rock magic, poising itself defiantly in the face of whatever ongoing music fad. Meatloaf's Bat Out of Hell 2 was a stellar example of symphonic rock soaring to the height of popularity when grunge ruled the airwaves. Slipknot and Mushroomhead and to some extent Fear Factory have for instance accomplished a similar task for traditionally less visible musical currents. Their toxic raw energy choke gripped the mainstream, turned heads and got people talking. Suddenly it was "hip" to listen to heavy music again.

I mention these bands because I think one can draw parallels to a rock group that, twenty years ago, would have been equally recognized by gen. pop, along with MTV appearances, rock magazine covers, and any other type of laurels that go with the territory.

Sinner's Crash and Burn is a project that would have fit right in somewhere between Skid Row and Great White. For the moment let's examine what those bands represent. On a technical scale they typically rank average to mediocre, depending, literally, on the album, or even a  song. 80's rock, as any other rock, can be seen through a mood prism, a feel of the decade channeled through musical expression. The formula for success in this case demands accessibility, catchiness, and mood-relevancy. Take these bands out of context, out of their decade, and they lose their food source. One can argue that people still have fondness for GnR, Winger, Great White, Ratt and in fact, many many other rock bands from that era. That point is absolutely undisputable. It is equally undisputable, I think, that a statistically significant majority of the fan base grew up in 80's, ergo, those bands never lost their grazing ground because our sense of attachment and nostalgia is powerful enough to continue to generate it. But typically we move forward. Metal has evolved in most wondrous and unanticipated ways. We take elements from the past and sculpt the future. In any niche we call that process ‘using our influences’. Modern power metal shares and borrows many such influences from the 80s. Often even it breeds the familiar trappings of that decade. Typically though, as a natural law would have it, metal as a genre has vastly improved over its roots.

And so here we have Sinner, a band that is so thoroughly educated in the 80's rock discipline, it is almost an awkward reminder of just how self-indulgent and objectively silly was the musical attitude of that period. The whole package is a tried and tested flash-frozen formula that brought success to many a practitioner of this mischievous craft two decades ago,  before the self-
deprecating doom and gloom of the grunge revolution wiped it off the charts.

The music, while it may be viewed as power metal by today's standards, is, with the exception of the first frenetic track, simply good old rock. It’s near flawlessly executed and full of hooks and guaranteed to catch you off-guard with some southern twang here and there, and cause a pleasantly raised eyebrow with a Celtic/folksy solo. It is also, sadly, very much by the numbers.

The singer is actually the most memorable feature of the band. His range is wide enough to do Judas Priest's Painkiller and close the night out with Motorhead's Ace of Spades. If Hansi Kürsch ever managed to sound less annoying the result may very well produce Sinner's singing phenom. First impression is that he is wasting his time in a group that has chosen style over substance and formula over progress. But maybe things are not that simple?

Sinner is a damn entertaining band. I say this after several weeks of going back and forth on it. The band brings it. They boldly and unapologetically shove a generous helping of swagger and machismo down your throat. Bitter medicine? Not at all.  It is a rare and much welcomed treat in today's predominantly skeptical post-modern philosophies of what constitutes good music. Sometimes, just sometimes, waving a rock-n-roll flag and parading around in tight leather pants while belting out some of the silliest lyrics since the heyday of Winger is a gloriously fun thing to do. Fun. We forget often enough that not all music needs be clinical and in need of being deciphered to be deemed quality. We forget where music comes from. The song and dance  around the fire after a hard day of work, a time to relax the body and the mind from the day’s labors. Certainly not all music needs be an emotionally bleak regurgitation of current events and evil deeds past and future. Sometimes it's just about letting loose, and having a good ol' time... Sometimes it’s just about rock and roll.

Release Date: September 19, 2008
Label: AFM Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Crash & Burn
2.  Break The Silence
3.  The Dog
4.  Heart Of Darkness
5.  Revolution
6.  Unbreakable
7.  Fist To Face
8.  Until It Hurts
9.  Little Head
10.  Connection
11.  Like A Rock

Total playing time: 41:12

TO THE TOP

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