Album Review: Heaven Shall Burn – Heimat

By DAN SOUTHALL

GERMAN metalcore mainstays Heaven Shall Burn are back doing what they do best – heavy as balls metalcore, nothing special, just riffs and heavy sounds.

After a cinematic opener sets a dramatic scene, “War is the Father of All”, continues the setting for another minute or so before dropping the curtain and kicking your teeth straight out your ears. If it wasn’t for the tasty underlying German melody this would be an ignorant deathcore track as tasty as they come.

Heaven Shall Burn are fairly play by numbers after this wild introduction. Not that there is anything bad with that, HSB have always been a very meat and potatoes band. They are good, and when they are great they are one of the best. Unfortunately, they struggle to be memorable save for a few examples.

For instance, “Confounder” has an interesting opening and the clean bark in the middle adds some flavour to the catchy riff playing under the chaos and “A Whisper From Above” drops an opening riff straight from the Murray/Smith/Gers playbook –  melodic, a little bluesy and heavy. This small departure from the formula makes it one of the more memorable tracks.

The cinematic “Imminence” allows for a small rest from the formulaic approach as if to start the album fresh for the second half. The biggest surprise here is the cover of the Killswitch Engage classic “Numbered Days”. This isn’t any old cover, with Jesse Leach adding more heft to the already weighty track.

This album is another decent display of what this band does. It isn’t bad or boring, just not as memorable as others doing the same thing.  It’s another solid entry into their catalogue and a decent place to start if you want to see why they have managed to stay in the metal consciousness for 25 years.