Finch – What It Is To Burn

Finch’s debut LP is an extra-ordinary one at best. It is a mix of fast paced, slow paced, screaming, amazing riffs/beats and just powerful vocals. If you are a fan of any punk music you’ll mostly like at least a couple Finch songs. No matter what if you are fans of GlassJaw, Thrice or Thursday you will definitely love  What It Is To Burn.

This 5 man band which has Alex Puppas on drums, Derek Doherty on bass, Nate Barcalow with vocals and Randy Strohmeyer and Alex Linares on guitar produced a distinctively different sound then most bands. At first listen to it, I wasn’t a huge fan for most of their songs, but as I listened to it a couple more times, I started to really like the album. The first song on the album is New Beginning. The song starts off soft, then gets harder with hard vocals by Nate. Around halfway through they start screaming, for a verse and then it goes back to he normal lyrics, and has screaming in the background. The song has a really good feel to it and a great CD opener.

The next song is one of my favorites, Letters To You. It has a great beat with powerful lyrics, although very short and repetitive. Its an amazing song. About someone writing a letter to a friend saying that he misses him/her a lot. It also happens to be one of their singles of the album. Then the song, Post Script comes on. If you have Atticus: Draggin The Lake compilation, then you would know this song. It is another fast paced song with heavy drum beats. Once again it starts off with hard vocals, then goes into screaming for a bit, then everything stops and quickly has Nate starts singing again “The Worst Is Over For Now”.

Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw lends his vocal and writing talents on the next song, Grey Matter. This song I am not a huge fan of. There is a little too much screaming in it for me. It starts off slowly and silently for the first 12 seconds, then gets hard and the screaming starts. There are a couple slow parts with softer vocals, but then once again goes back to the screaming. Speaking of Daryl Palumbo, he also lends his talents on the ninth song, Project Mayhem. Which unfortunately is my least favorite song on the album. Just way to loud, you can’t hear much of what they are saying.

Now back to Perfection Through Silence, the fifth song. It is a wonderful song with great beats and vocals, and of course, a but of screaming in it. Awake is the next song on What It Is To Burn. This too is one of my favorites. It has a distinctive beat and vocal, and just overall sound. 2:30 into the song, it goes really soft and Nate whispers “Now” intill around 3:120 whe he says” Keep Breathing,  Till You Feel Something. Take My Breath” and everything gets loud once more as he says “Awake”. He finishes the song with the chorus, and once again some screaming. Just a great finish to a great song.

Without You Here sounds completely different form the rest of the album, but in a good way. Its a slower song and a good break to the rest of the fast paced songs. Stay With Me is the next song and another exhilarating one. Its about someone that is trying to convince someone else to stay with him. this one if probably my second favorite song on the entire CD.

I’ve already talked about Project Mayhem so I will skip ahead to song 10, Untitled. This is another good song, but there’s nothing extremely special about it. So I’ll just tell you about Three Simple Words, my third favorite song on the album. This sons opens with a spectacular guitar riff and then introduces the drums a bit later. It is full of hard vocals and powerful lyrics, the ones that stick out most are: “With My Hands Around Your Neck, Who Will Stop Me Know?” This song is hard to explain, but you should definitely check it out.

Ender is the end to the CD (except for the bonus song). Is is a slower song then the rest of the album, but still done extremely well.  This too is hard to explain in words, it is just an great song, showing just how big a talent this band has. The song is around 5 minutes and a half long, then it goes into around 2 minutes of music, getting softer and softer. Then there is around 7 minutes of dead air in till the bonus song, What It Is To Burn starts. The CD-titled songs starts off with a totally different rhythm then all the other songs, then there is a small bit of screaming before the vocals commence.  This is a good song to end the album on.