### Heaven Shall Burn: Iconoclast (part I: the final resistance)

#### 14/01/08 || Euthanatos

The new Heaven Shall Burn album is a good way to seal off 2007 (even though the album comes out January 2008, I write this on the 30th of December), I think. It’s great progress on what was already a promising band, and violent enough to yell out a great “fuck you” to everything that fucking sucked about the year.

Obviously, by now, we are all aware that there’s no such thing as “melodic death metal”, and that our desperate need for labeling sound sometimes simply needs to be toned down.

Heaven Shall Burn do have a lot of death metal in them, and a considerable amount of melody. But they are as different from the Gothenburg crew as they are brutal, and nothing pumps me up more than a really, really fucking heavy album. It particularly shines because it’s a lot less “hardcore” than “Deaf to our Prayers”, and a lot more “metal”.

“Iconoclast” delivers one power punch after the other, it’s relentless and unforgiving and before you’re all dead, your flesh will be theirs (see what I did there?). After the curiously appealing intro “Awoken”, from “Endzeit” on, all hell breaks loose.

The guitar melodies are awesome, I like the keyboard/orchestral tidbits, which are totally well-immersed and not overused or forced. Everyone should check this album out to see how it’s done.

I like the vocals, even though they are a bit too “layered” for my tastes, they do fit perfectly with the music; aggressive and desperate.

And guess what! Heaven Shall Burn hit the jackpot…They covered Edge of Sanity! Now it just doesn’t get any better than that, especially for a Swanö fan boy like yours truly. “Purgatory Afterglow” fucking RULES and this version for “Black Tears” is flawless, I really like what the guys proposed to do here. I think they certainly accomplished it.

May I also throw “A Dying Ember” and “Like a Thousand Suns” your way as highlights of this mighty opus. Fuck that, listen to the whole god damn thing, it rules.

The cover: Just to get even more bad-ass, the cover art is really bad-ass. Warrior dude kicking butt. Fuck yeah.

9 dark satanic bloody new years out of 10.

- Information
- Released: 2008
- Label: Century Media
- Website: www.heavenshallburn.com
- Band
- Marcus Bischoff: vocals
- Maik Weichert: guitar
- Alexander Dietz: guitar
- Eric Bischoff: bass
- Matthias Voigt: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Awoken
- 02. Endzeit
- 03. Like A Thousand Suns
- 04. Murderers Of All Murderers
- 05. Forlorn Skies
- 06. A Dying Ember
- 07. Joel
- 08. Quest For Resistance
- 09. Black Tears (Edge Of Sanity Cover)
- 10. The Bombs Of My Saviours
- 11. Against All Lies
- 12. The disease
- 13. Equinox
- 14. Atonement