Burn Halo - Burn Halo Review

Posted by Marshall Slayton on 04.22.2009

The vocalist of Eighteen Visions is back... only this time, he's here to rob your saloon.



1. Dirty Little Girl (ft. Synyster Gates)
2. Save Me
3. Here With Me
4. Too Late To Tell You Now
5. So Addicted
6. Dead End Roads & Lost Highways
7. Saloon Song
8. Our House
9. Fallin' Faster
10. Anejo" (ft. Synyster Gates)
11. Back To The Start
12. Gasoline

Eighteen Visions may be gone, but vocalist James Hart still has plenty of fuel left to burn. Enter Burn Halo, a new band featuring Hart positioned front and center, his newest project since Eighteen Visions disbanded in late 2007.

Musically, not much is different: Burn Halo sounds like a lot like Hart’s previous band. Take away the hardcore influence, add one bottle of Jack Daniels, a dash of the 80’s, one punch to your wife’s face, and you’ll get an idea of what Burn Halo sounds like.

Listening to their debut, you can’t ignore the feeling that it may have worked better if it had been released twenty years ago. If Burn Halo existed around the time of Motley Crue, INXS, and Guns n’ Roses, they may have been viewed as one of the essential building blocks of late 80’s rock. Now, they're merely an offspring of those bands, and James Hart may owe a royalty check to Axl Rose.

The similarities of Burn Halo to Guns n’ Roses are uncanny. The opening track and single, “Dirty Little Girl,” has shades of "Right Next Door to Hell" from Use Your Illusion I. Perhaps the most blatant act of plagiarism on Burn Halo goes to “Here With Me,” which sounds dangerously close to “Sweet Child O' Mine,” with the high, repetitive guitar chords on display.

But I will give credit where it's due: Burn Halo does a better job of mimicking the old Guns n’ Roses sound better than the overproduced Chinese Democracy. And this is leaps and bounds better than the Mudvayne/Damageplan/Pantera hillbilly side project, HELLYEAH.

Very strangely, the best song on Burn Halo is at the end. “Gasoline” is the first moment where all the elements of the band gel together perfectly. James Hart finds a great chorus with “I’m going down, down, down, down…” and builds upbeat music to accompany the chorus. There’s a great surprise at the end of the song, where the production gets stripped down and leaves Hart with an acoustic guitar to round out the end of the album. It's like a camp fire with a bunch of friends, belting out the chorus, swaying, and drinking beers. This appears to be the true spirit of Burn Halo, and one of the few moments where it's captured beautifully.

Burn Halo has exceptional bookends. The opening three songs are decent 80’s rock, and the final three tracks bring back the old school rock n’ roll spirit. The middle section is where the album drags because of filler. None of it is bad to the point of unlistenable, but it won't really blow your socks off, either.

Listening to this album is exactly like eating a giant bucket of popcorn. It tastes good going down and leaves you feeling pretty full afterward, but for some reason, you'll still wish you had a real dinner.

The 411: Not a bad first attempt from Burn Halo, but those familiar with Eighteen Visions will wish for that band's edgier sound. The excitement of vocalist James Hart is apparent here, but that enthusiasm doesn't save most of these songs from becoming generic, repetitive, and mere copies of late 80's hair metal.

Final Score:  6.5   [ Average ]