Acres – Burning Throne
Release Date: 3rd March 2023
Label: A Wolf At Your Door Records
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Genre: Alt-Metal, Post-Hardcore.
FFO: Being As An Ocean, Casey, Holding Absence.
Review By: Paul Franklin
Whilst they have spent the best part of a decade toiling away, building a reputation as a consistently solid alt-metal band, Burning Throne is only the second full-length release from this south coast foursome, following 2019’s Lonely World.
Sticking very much to the tried and tested post-hardcore/alt-metal template the album’s ten tracks are dripping in emotion and catharsis, mixing atmospheric melodies with heavier slamming riffs, crooning dreamy vocal sections rudely interrupted by throaty grating screams.
Deciding to hit hard from the get-go, opener Nothing is perhaps the heaviest song the band have penned, dense in atmosphere with the added dynamism provided by Garrett Russell (Silent Planet). Next the title track starts with what sounds like a ghostly choir before Ben Lumbar takes over vocal duties with a clean, impassioned delivery that puts a big tick in all the genre boxes whilst you wait for the inevitable heavy breakdown in the final third.
And it’s that box ticking that unfortunately holds this album back somewhat. There is some good, solid stuff there, it’s just that the majority of it is stuff that you expect to hear on this type of record. There are a lot of elements that sound too overly familiar.
The album was written by guitarist Alex Freeman, who acknowledges that it wasn’t easy, especially under the pressures and frustrations of lockdown. “I had to teach myself to write on my own again, and knowing it was all on me was pretty unnerving.” Perhaps, that could explain why it all sounds a bit safe, you are waiting for that one song to take all that emotion and feeling and really smack you in the chest, but it never quite manages it.
Hopefully, next time things will be different. 
(2.5 / 5)
