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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Burn Piano Island, Burn
EMAILPRINTby The Blood Brothers
Universal acclaim
Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 27 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Artist Direct
Release Date: 18 March 2003
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Alternative, Metal
Summary
Known for their loud, angry, and extreme take on metal (well, even more so than your average metal band), The Blood Brothers return with their third album in as many years.
Also By This Artist: Crimes Young Machetes
Also On The Web: Official Artist Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Alternative Press
The quintet's Molotov mixture of suburb surrealism and sonic extremity is the perfect scrub for everything you've been subjected to in culture and daily life. [Apr 2003, p.73]
PopMatters
The most prolific, beautiful, and vital statement of rock since the Stooges' Raw Power.
Read Full Review >Stylus Magazine
Burn, Piano Island, Burn is an album that must first be listened to twice: once to wrap your head around its peerless vigor and skull-rattling force, and again to revel in its restless creativity.
Read Full Review >Spin
They sound like they're too busy tearing their limbs off and hitting one another over the head with them to think about what the songs actually mean. [Apr 2003, p.102]
Pitchfork
Burn, Piano Island, Burn balances so perfectly between commercial appeal and untainted creativity that it's as if the band have been digitally inserted atop a mountain no man could conceivably climb.
Read Full Review >Delusions of Adequacy
Whether you end up liking this album or not, it is going to be one of the most intense things you've ever heard.
Read Full Review >Mojo
There are no punk-lite hits here, but cult stardom is knocking at the door. [Mar 2003, p.112]
ShakingThrough.net
It's the band's most vital disc to date, and one of the year's most memorable listening experiences.
Read Full Review >Almost Cool
I have to admit that this release usually manages to give me a little boost when I listen to it and it has the added bonus of scaring little kids.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly
The Blood Brothers' take on hardcore incorporates all the shouty vocals, savage guitar riffing, and hyperspeed drumming you could ask for, but throws in two--sometimes counterproductive--vocalists, and loopy lyrics that aim for surrealist poetry and usually miss, badly. [11 Apr 2003, p.78]
Neumu.net
In one instant, lead singer Jordan Blilie is whispering passionately in your ear. In the next, he tears into your insides with growls so piercing you'd think he'd transformed into a savage beast.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
The album's clever turns don't take away from The Blood Brothers as a ravaging hardcore band; instead, they enlist chops in service of a manic vision all the more insinuating for its brutality.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone
It all seems spazzy, but it's actually meticulous and crisply rendered: order through chaos.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
Kids looking to anger their parents to the point of losing it should pick up this CD, turn up the stereo, and lock the door.
Read Full Review >Splendid
Less cohesively engaging than March on Electric Children, Burn, Piano Island, Burn is, by turns, spasmodically inviting and gratingly repulsive to all but the most patient of noisemongers.
Read Full Review >Drawer B
The Blood Brothers pretty much have one speed: murder. This will tire even the most patient ears after about fifteen minutes, although, the album does show signs of expanded musical breadth with slower, albeit, brief melodic interludes and unconventional instrumentation (xylophones, toy pianos).
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 9.4 (out of 10) based on 27 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Justin B. gave it a10:
An album with this type of music can not sound better than what the blood brothers did with 'burn piano island, burn."
Andy gave it a7:
This album is great but it doesn't match the originality and creativity they fuse together on their later effort, Crimes.
john w gave it a10:
fuck crimes
Tristram C gave it a10:
I am very stingy with my perfect scores but this is a case where it is certainly deserved. I am not aware of a precedent for this music. I am sure the band is influenced by the Residents and Captain Beefheart likeminded avants at heart and have paired it with the DC hardcore of Bad Brains, Minor Threat etc. However, I can’t help hearing this still 2 years after its release and thinking that something innovative and exciting has happened here. This feeling is compounded by my failed searches to find music comparable from the surrounding “screamo” scene. Fear Before the March of Flames, Underoath and Dismemberment Plan are competent bands but they and everyone else are simply outclassed by the Blood Brothers. This is searing, stabbing, glorious stuff and history will remember them kindly even if they break up tomorrow.
Hollowaxis gave it a10:
This band sounds like that part of American History X where the dude bites the pavement. You dont want to look, but you know that if you miss it you wont be able to hold intelligent conversation with a film fan ever again. If you like music of any guitar and drums based variety this album should scream, tear and maul its way into your collection. This is massivley hardcore music performed with sould and real feeling. So many bands pretend to be harder than they are but with no compromise Blood Brothers deliver spine cracking songs on after the other. Buy this album. You might be scared at first, shocked or even horrified. Its not run of the mill angry metal fodder but is miles and miles ahead of anything else that is going on. Love this band. Please.
Bo O! gave it a10:
This Band is everywhere, the drumming is scattered, guitars are spinning and swrriving vocals are doubled. Everything is all crazin like a nascar wreck that spins out of control and flipps over and over and over until it hits us in the face. As Many times as ive listened to this album, they would all be dead. Absolutely Great!
Taylor N gave it a 10:
i'd give it and 11 if i could
