Burning Borders

“Burning Borders, hailing from the cold North of Vancouver, Canada is bringing to listeners a melodic, passionate and agreeably hot sound with their upcoming album release of “Yesterday’s Gone” on September 1, 2009.

Much like the name, Burning Borders, brings to its fans deep, thoughtful and well-organized songs that move you with memorable lyrics, non-repetitive sounds and iPod ready favorites that defy pre-set borders and musical genres.

Smart, smooth, part Chris Daughtry-esque, radio ready scream-o vocals from Brian Reed, edgy guitar riffs from guitarists Justin Griffiths, Mike Guercio and Kevin Catroppa and the rhythmic drumming from Levi Catroppa make up the well thought out group. The album was produced by Tim Neuhaus at Ear Art Studios for Thorny Bleeder Records. This marks the second collaboration between Neuhaus and the band as he also produced their first independent album, “Truth and Logic” in 2008.

My favorites are “Cold”, “Sacrifice” and “Follow”. These make up the back bone of the well-timed and super great feeling album. This is not your grandma’s music. It provides a feeling of sensible anger mixed with softer beats that might remind you of a softer Slipknot minus the excessive drums and mixing. This album will surely propel Burning Borders to the front of the music scene. You can listen for their first single, “Leading” soon on your local station.” http://www.myspace.com/burningbordersmusic

~Reviewed by Jason O. Smith

CONTEST:

The 15th person who twitters about Burning Borders using “@HotIndieArtists” on their twitter account will get a FREE CD sent directly to them!!!!


- Hot Indie Artists

Overview: The music scene of Vancouver, Canada has seemingly transformed in the last few years, largely in part to the ever growing populous of bands heading there to record in the studio of mega-producer Brian Howes. If the new CEO of Van Howes Records decides to explore his local land for talent that doesn�t write songs about relationship shit hitting the fan or to promote a major sport, he might be pleased to stumble upon Burning Borders. The group is a cohesion of members from several former bands that rocked Vancouver the way the Canucks cannot, and after all five members were logged in, Burning Borders started getting to work. The quintet became pregnant with a bulk of tunes and started the Pre Natal care of their prize by hitting the studio with producer Tim Neuhaus. La Maz classes aside and without an epidural, Burning Borders gave birth to its bundle of joy in April 2007, named Truth and Logicï. The band recently released Sleep as the first single off their upcoming new album due later this year.

The Good: If this were a game of Pong (not ping-pong, the ORIGINAL Pong), then Burning Borders album Truth and Logic would be a rapid-fire bouncy ball stuck in between two spectrums. Who are the two folks controlling each bar?-Burning Borders. The band is able to play tug-of-war with itself with some impressive results. The album starts with Bottom of a Bottle; you dont need to do it for the drugs or do it just to feel alive, because Burning Borders will make the good times roll. Meaty and eclectic, Bottom of a Bottle is able to pass through a labyrinth of styles very early on without losing steam or sounding pretentious. The band really has a gift in vocalist Brian Reed, and his magic wand starts to wave on the blistering Run and Hide, as his post-grunge, early 90s alt-rock sound is a powerful engine driving this rather transcendent tune. Reed screams on Run and Hide give Reds Michael Barnes an impressive run for his money, keeping the commanding nature of the song going. Reed even outwits Atreyu Alex Varkatzas multiple times throughout Tragedy, whose blitzkrieging nougat center is made even sweeter by a steady, radio worthy build-up. Lose Control is its own entity. The opening seconds of the tune are jolted by a death metal growl, which, in a strange way, acts like rare heard comic relief. As the towering Lose Control soldiers on, the stand up act gets even better when Burning Borders, intended or not, mocks a xxhardxcorexx breakdown in the bridge, turning the grin on my face to all out laughter (but in a really good way). Again is well placed on Truth and Logic, cooling things off with a sensible touch, while the sum of its parts comes next with Enemy. The first part of Enemy will make Statement-era Nonpoint fans orgasm, expanding and growing until the very end. The ravenous and savage Selfish throws coals back into the boiler, but this is not its crowning achievement. Lose Control was kind of like Burning Borders talking smack to the oversaturated metalcore gene-pool, and the band walks the walk through Selfish. The song is a nail-splitting tryst that sounds as good, if not better than something a Killswitch Engage or a Silent Civilian could produce, espousing the bands professionalism and attention to detail. Burning Borders seems to know the way Bo Jackson knows (or rather knew), as the band gives Swedish metal a go during the bridge of the gritty pulse of Life on Display; the tracks frenzied, yet calculated thrash rants will keep you on your toes. Truth and Logic goes from hungry Grizzly bear to cuddly Teddy bear with So Divine, a harmonious block of sentimental emotion that is never overzealous, giving Burning Borders plenty of room to play for the records last hoorah. Hold Me Down lets you go, a rock-steady way for Truth and Logic to gradually come to a rest. Burning Borders have done what so many bands of a similar ilk are doing, only they make it sound legit, palpable, and most of all, logical.

The Bad: With so much going on during Truth and Logic, it would be easy for Burning Borders to make some careless mistakes, which they have. As far as songs go, the only real stray would be Animated, as it sounds like it was assembled from a buffet of other cuts and slopped on the plate. In reality though, Burning Borders could have done without Again as well, because Enemy takes just about everything Again covered and raises the bar; if anything, Again should have come much earlier in the record. Switching poles, the final trimester of Truth and Logic sounds a little bedridden. After covering so much ground and making so much progress in the middle portion of the album, Burning Borders seem to be daydreaming as Truth and Logic makes its stretch run; it kind of feels like the magician trying to melt Frosty, a poor and unjust way to cap off any album, let alone a promising debut.

Bottomline: Burning Borders should pat themselves on the back for their work on Truth and Logic. If I were to tell you that a novice band out of Canada were sitting on a first album that fluently and astutely harnessed modern hard rock and American metalcore, would you believe me? Would you even want to believe me? Truth be told, Burning Borders do an enviable job of doing just that. Sure, the sound is raw and the double bass is sometimes used to overkill, but for every one fault, Burning Borders respond with two or three positive steps forward, putting them further atop rock musics Everest than a wealth of others. - Nick @ TuneLabMusic

Music Q and A with BURNING BORDERS
By Spencer Williams at Alpha Secondary School

Q. What do you love about music?
Brian¨- “The way it makes you feel� Brian sees music as a outlet to express his own emotions. Music indicates life. As if life were a soundtrack, every song has a different meaning and shows different emotions. Music helps to accentuate how you feel whether it’s bad or good.
Levi – “Everybody loves music� “Music will take you back to a time in your life…� Every song captures a specific moment in your life. The next time you hear that song, it will bring you back to that memory.� “…Not only does it take you back to that memory, but it also captures your senses� Right down to the fragrance that girl was wearing, the day you met her. “That’s what’s cool about it�

Q. If you had one thing to say to all the people who didn’t have faith in you guys and said you wouldn’t make it as a band what would that be?
Brian - “We all work during the day. Our 9 to 5’s… then play music on the side�
Levi – “YOU ARE SOOO RIGHT! I should have gone into school!� Levi feels that there is “positive and negatives� with the whole experience of playing in the band. There is a lot of pressure to do more with his life. Like further education, or work his way to the top at his current job as an electrician. But also, there is a lot of support from the boy’s friends, family, and fans. They haven’t really run into a lot of criticism.

Q. Who came up with the name of band the “Burning Borders�? What does it mean? Why is it significant to the band?
Justin – Chris Brams (guitarist) and Justin were driving in his 3-Ton Truck to the store and Justin said “What if we burnt all the borders in the world?� And the name stuck. The name is about burning political boundaries. Burning Borders is here to split the boundaries. They don’t want to have any borders with their music. They can do whatever they want when writing. They don’t want the listener to put in a CD where the first song turns into the sound of the whole album. They are digging deeper with their music to become a band that become any genre, with it’s diversity in musicianship. There are so many different songs on the first album. They range from “Again� which is slower to “Selfish� which is really heavy. They are trying to break away from the specific structure that happens with any song in any genre that is on the radio currently. “We want to test every boundary possible, just to say that we’ve tried it.�

Q. What are your guy’s musical influences?
Pantera, Dimebag Darryl, Kurt Cobain, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young. Anyone that revolutionized the music industry. You can tell a when a musician that has put their time and their life into their music, and that is who we look up to.

Q. Define the ultimate rebel.
Justin - NinjaSpy! (Local Vancouver Band) The ultimate rebel is someone that does not follow the “status quo� and does not follow society. Ninjaspy is not following any kind of reform and have everything they need to be an amazing band. Put on an amazing show. Did their first album out of their basement and created something amazing.
Levi – Johnny Cash was “the first gangster�. Going to jail and doing shows, playing the blues and gospel music when no other white person was doing that.

Q. Describe Music in one sentence.
Brian - Love.
Levi – A love and hate addiction
Justin – The love of tone to live your life

Q. Who do you consider a rock legend?
Dimebag Darryl. It’s the way that he plays. He has so much soul behind his music. He’s not only a musician, he’s a composer. Jimi Page, Queen (7-octave range!)

Q. How did you guys come up with the title for the first album? Why did you guys select “Truth and Logic� as the album title? What does it mean to you guys?
That was Kevin Catroppa (bassist). The boys were throwing names around and Kevin suggested that. The name of the album came from lyrics off of the third song on the album “Tragedy�. Truth and Logic is about the falsehood of religion and politics. And, most importantly, it sounded cool.

Q. Do you guys enjoy playing music?
Justin – "I get up at 5:30am everyday and work hard. At the end of the day, I get to come to practice, pick up my guitar, and forget about everything else."
Brian- We’ve created a family with our band through music.
Levi – With music, what you loose is always more than what you gain. If you are just doing it for the love of the instrument and you’re not planning to make it anywhere, that will not be the case. But if you want to make a living at this, you have to put so much time and effort into this, before you will even see anything back. “You really have to love what you do, to do this.�

Q. Bottom of a Bottle, Enemy and Sleep are some of my favorite songs by you guys, What are they about? Are those songs significant to you guys?
Brian – Bottom of a Bottle is about somebody who is dealing with an alcohol problem (1st verse) and somebody who is dealing with a drug problem (2nd verse). When comparing your problems to others may make them seem less significant, but at the bottom of a bottle we are all equal.
Justin – "Enemy is about a breakup with a girl..." Justin and Brian went through a tough breakup around the same time and wrote a song about it. "...A breakup can feel like your house has burnt down and the world has come to an end, but the positive side is it will make it killer song."
Sleep – Is about being in a fixed situation and not having control over it. Wanting to go to sleep and wake up the next day it will be gone, but it’s never that easy. The problem will just attach itself to you.

Q. Who comes up with the lyrics? Brian. Though, it’s always an open table though when the boys write their music. Brian conveys his emotions through “his instrument� which is the microphone.

Q. How do you guys get pumped for a show?
It’s just such a natural amazing feeling to get on stage. The boys are pumped to play, the moment they wake up that morning.
Brian feeds off of the crowd when he performs. The more energy the crowd puts out, the more energy the band is going to have. The boys have a lot of crazy stories about playing. But we’ll have to save that for when YOU go see them play. How to get pumped for a show is to put on the music you love and play it as loud as possible!

Q. How do you guys prepare for the studio?
We just, more or less, make sure all the songs are ready to be recorded. We do as much practicing and preparation we can before the studio. Making sure that the song is 100% done. Once we feel that we are at the stage, we hand the song over to our producer, Tim Neuhaus, at Ear Art Studios and he takes the song to the next level. “Tim is our 6th member�

Q. If you guys each had a chance to collaborate with someone who would it be? And why?
I’d say Jon Bonham (drummer for Led Zepelin), I’d love to sit down with him when he was in his prime during Zepelin 2. Just to see where his mind set was at.
Don and the guys from The Turn (Vancouver Seeds Top 5 ’07).
Johnny Cash. Kurt Cobain. Anyone who dedicates their time and their life into their instrument.
We are all separate entities and we all have different styles. We all have something to share with the other musicians.

Q. How has music helped each one of you guys grow more as a person?
Brian – “Music has changed who I am. Even when I first started listening to music (before writing and playing) Music has shaped who I am as a person.� We can’t imagine what we or the world would be like without music.
Justin – “Music is the reason why I live my life� Music can pull you out of your problems or even just relate to your problems.
Levi – “Music gets everyone through the day.� Music is a language that everyone speaks.

Q. Where do you guys see Burning Borders in two years?
Doing the same thing we are doing right now. Hopefully, on a larger scale. Touring full-time. Playing in front of larger crowds of 500 to a thousand.

Burning Borders is:
Brian Reed- Lead Vocals
Justin Griffiths- Guitar/ Vocals
Chris Brams- Guitar/ Vocals
Kevin Catroppa- Bass Guitar
Levi Catroppa- Drums/Vocals - Spencer Williams

Burning Borders made the TOP 10 in this years 99.3 FOX SEEDS 2008 CONTEST. The boys were one of over 500 local Vancouver bands to submit. - CFOX 99.3fm