By Matt Lewis

It has been six long and agonizing years since the last BBTS full length record in 2003 The Perfect Is The Enemy of Good. Breaking up shortly after the release, there was widespread rumors of a reunion album and recording as far back as 2006. Three years after the recording began, it has finally come to fruition with the release of Heart of Darkness on Relapse Records. Burnt By The Sun has never been one to leave out groove and melody laced with absolutely fury and heaviness in an intelligent way and this continues on Heart of Darkness. As always the groove is driven by Dave Witte on drums, a man of many bands but never short on talent and ability to hold any style of music together. The drums sound huge and really pound out those heavy head banging riffs like Lexington Steele pounding a chick into submission. Mike Olender proves he is still one angry pissed off dude, spewing forth lyrics and politically views like a machine gun . Even with the addition of Nick Hale from Premonitions of War on as second guitarist it is as if the band had never broken up and they picked up right where they left off on The Perfect Is The Enemy of Good. They haven’t missed a step or sound dated in any way. Fans of the band will be ecstatic with this release, they couldn’t have asked for a better record. The band says this is their final record but let’s hope they decide to continue and go forward. This is definitely a highlight of the year.

(Relapse)