Burnt Ones
You’ll Never Walk Alone
Reviewed by Michele Zipkin
You’ll Never Walk Alone is San Francisco-based Burnt Ones’ second album, but the first they co-wrote as a three piece group. Drummer Amy Crouch and bassist Brian Allen merely joined vocalist Mark Tester in the recording of his debut Black Teeth, Golden Tongues.
According to this glam rock/grunge band, You’ll Never Walk Alone is a pretty personal album that takes the listener “down a dark passage of mental abuse and on to spiritual release”. Initially we can sense a fair amount of darkness with the song “Glitter Death”, in which we hear the gritty drone of an electric guitar under the fairly antisocial lyrics “Tell all of your friends that this is the end of all these stupid trends.” But if this journey is supposed to be chronological, that’s not necessarily abundantly clear. Some of these songs sound melodically and rhythmically upbeat, and the lyrics not always comprehensible, so how can we really derive the essence of the song?
One such song is “Web”, in which the lyrics are barely audible, and the collage of instrumentals emits more or less positive vibes (with the exception of that fuzzy guitar)- the upbeat drums, guitar riff and vocal melody all ring slightly empowering. Because of this disconnect between the story of the song and the mood of the instrumentals, it might be easy to dismiss some of these songs as potentially happy or at least optimistic, when they probably center on emotional turmoil. The song “Fountain of Youth” sports a pretty cheery melody, though Tester seems to be singing about materialistic women whose main concern is trying to retain their youthful looks, or at least trying to capture that youthful feeling. And I only came to that conclusion by looking up the lyrics.
On the other hand, the lyrics and overall blend of the instrumentals are not the only devices that convey meaning through a song. “Vision Forever” definitely captures the essence of emotional distress with its sweeping, grainy electric guitar and downtrodden melody.
Apparently the band used every instrument at their fingertips to record this album, and sometimes the result is a wall of sound that is not necessarily pleasing to the ear. There’s a little too much going on instrumentally in “Hologram Dropouts”- the intermittent distortion provided by one of the guitars detracts from the rest of the song, which has pretty snazzy background vocals in tandem with a bumping little rhythmic riff in the bass. In this situation, less might just be more.
The most minimal song on the album is without a doubt “Move On”, in which Tester’s undeniably uplifting lyrics can be heard. It’s hard to misinterpret them with the background chorus singing “Everything’s gonna be fine.” Compared to the defeatist tone at the start of the album, it’s a good way to wrap things up.
Rating: 
