Band : Heaven Shall Burn
Album title : Invictus – Iconoclast III
Label : Century Media
Distributor : EMI
Release date : 24/05/2010
Release : CD

Aha, one of Germany’s best-selling exports bands in the crossover area of Melodic Death Metal & Metalcore (the  band itself is adament in playing bóth, and quite right they àre) is back with their…6th full-length album. As mentioned in my review (posted 30/01/2008 and still available for an overview of the band’s career up to that point) of the preceeding studio album Iconoclast, that album had the subtitle Part 1: The Final Resistance…and this one’s subtitle is Iconoclast III, so what’s wrong with the calculous? Nothing really, it’s just that the second part was delivered already in May of last year with the live CD/DVD Bildersturm: Iconoclast II (The Visual Resistance)…an album which we were regrettably not sent for review.

Details nót in above mentioned review of the Part I album include the fact that the album included a cover of Edge Of Sanity’s “Black Tears”. Also the album came in a limited double pack edition including a DVD of the band’s 2007 Wacken Open Air performance and the video for the track “Counterweight” off an earlier album, plus a picture gallery. Obviously, the album hit the charts in several countries (#21 in Germany, #29 in Greece). In Japan, the album came with two bonus tracks, a cover of Merauder’s “Downfall Of Christ” and their own “No One Will Shed A Tear”. Updates? Having released their album in January 2008 (was voted album of the month in Rock Hard, Legacy, and made it to #2 in Metal Hammer’s “Soundcheck”), the band later that year contributed versions of Tiamat’s “Whatever That Hurts” and the aforementioned Merauder song for the Century Media compilation Covering 20 Years Of Extremes, a 2-CD set with the label’s acts paying tribute to their labelmates (Fear My Thoughts covered HSB’s classic track “The Weapon They Fear”). A video was released of Iconoclast’s “Endzeit” Following a bunch of German and European dates in February 2008, HSB crossed the Atlantic for an April US tour. A frantic touring schedule followed with more dates in Europe (including a show at Belgium’s Groezrock), towing Aborted and Misery Speaks along as support acts. During Summer more festivals followed, like Finland’s Ilosaarirock Festival, Greenfield Festival (Switzerland), Dour Festival (Belgium), Summer Breeze (Germany, their 3rd time in as many years). Recordings for the Bildersturm CD/DVD were done on September 12 at Vienna’s Gasometer (with the aid of fans), and after the band’s hop-along with the 2008 Persistence Tour, guitarists Maik and Alex (the band’s producers, you know) hurried on over to Denmark to aid Tue Madsen (in a way, the band’s sixth member) in the mixing of the material. Evidently, the mixing of the DVD took a bit  longer than that of a CD, what with all the footage that had to be filtered, and therefore live activity was a bit slower in the first part of 2009…but with the CD/DVD released in May (featuring material from both the Vienna stint and the band’s appearance at Summer Breeze, plus a comprehensive rockumentary on the band) the band was back in full force for the festival season. But just before that, they joined Black Tide as supports for Trivium on an Australian tour (HSB’s first time over there).

Well, enough road trip news, because in the meantime the band had already been working on new material. The new album continues in the same flow as its predecessor, but also sees the band go into new territory. Things of old are the band’s typical music overall, plus the atmmospherical & neo-classical instrumental intro and outro (titled just that simply) of the album, brought by Ólafur Arnalds, and the fact that again another band’s song was covered as a bonus (this time around, Therapy?’s “Nowhere”) for inclusion on the CD+DVD limited edition of the album (aha, I hear you go – more about that later!!!). Experimental for the band is the use of electronics in the songs “Combat” (extra dance beats on top of the drums) and “The Lie You Bleed For” (synth sounds in the opening and further in the song, where some piano is added as well). Also new for the band (as far as I know) is a very classy male-female duet in the track “Given In Death”, for which they invited Deadlock’s Sabine Weniger (her bandmate Sebastian Reichl also makes a contribution to the track with additional guitar, by the way). Purist may curse the hell out of me, but along with the two electronically-infused tracks and “Against Bridge Burners” (which has a shouted passage in German), “Given In Death” belongs among the stand-out tracks on the album!

To get the fans acquainted with some of their new material, the band posted the tracks “Combat” and “The Omen” (alongside older songs, including the Tiamat cover mentioned above) at myspace.com/officialheavenshallburn. About the limited edition now…it not only contains the bonus cover track on the CD, but also a DVD with a live performance recorded in Vienna on February 21 of this year. Inspired by the movie 300, the band picked 300 of the concertgoers, furnished ‘em with special t-shirts, and let ‘em have a “battle” on the band’s music. Should be worth getting, especially if you were there that day! Oh, need I say (considering the rating below) that Invictus was shoved into my 2010 year-lists as soon as I’d given the album its first listening session?

98/100

Tony.