Burn Burn By Our Lady Peace

With arguably the most emotive singer in modern alternative rock today, Our Lady Peace is back with their seventh studio album “Burn Burn.” It’s been four years since the Canadian band’s last release and the break hasn’t brought much of a change to their soaring rock sound and evocative lyrics, which is not a bad thing if you’re a fan, but it does mean that there’s nothing new on the table.

Starting out with the first single “All You Did Was Save My Life,” which is one of the best tracks on the album, Raine Maida’s intense vocals immediately set the band apart from any of their counterparts. The song, about a loved one dragging you back from dark depths and ‘saving your life,’ has a catchy, honest chorus, that definitely makes it a good choice for the album’s first single.

A wall of sound greets listeners on “Monkey Brains,” a heavier, sultry tune that is driven by a thumping snare drum throughout. Here Maida’s vocals are downplayed somewhat so that Steve Mazur’s guitar playing can come to the foreground.

Other enjoyable tracks include “Never Get Over You” and “Signs Of Life,” while the songs “Escape Artist” and “Refuge” appear to be time fillers more than anything else.

At a mere ten tracks, the album is over in 38 minutes, prompting the question – just what took them so long to bring this out? It’s not that spectacular a record that it should take two years (they started recording in 2007) to produce little more than half an hour of music.

The album is not bad to listen to by any means and will no doubt please fans of the band, but it feels more like a regurgitation of a past album than a new musical creation. Hopefully their next album will come a lot sooner, or be mind-blowing – i.e. deliver on everything “Burn Burn” failed to do.