{"id":16292,"date":"2013-10-22T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-22T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=16292"},"modified":"2014-01-09T21:41:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T21:41:57","slug":"album-review-burning-kingdom-simplified","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-burning-kingdom-simplified\/","title":{"rendered":"BURNING KINGDOM – Simplified (2013) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

BURNING KINGDOM
Simplified<\/strong><\/span>
\n\"\"
\nAvispa (2013)<\/span>
Rating: 8\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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Those of you familiar with late 80s and early 90s melodic metal may recall a criminally underrated New York City band called Tyketto who were fronted by Danny Vaughn. Well, now he\u2019s the new lead vocalist for international melodic hard rock band Burning Kingdom who has just released their third opus via Avispa Records.<\/p>\n

Vaughn is backed by Spanish guitarist and Burning Kingdom founder Manuel Seoane, along with the Swedish duo of bassist Tobbe TosiGalen (Carnival Sun \/ Erottika) and drummer Johnny Benson (Crazy Lixx \/ Bai Bang), and Danish keyboardist Mikkel Henderson (Fate).<\/p>\n

All 11 tracks on offer were written by Vaughn and Seoane so it\u2019s no surprise that this is a polished, driving and catchy platter featuring upbeat melodies, tight musicianship and Danny Vaughn\u2019s exceptional leadership. Promotion for the record began with the second track, \u2018Watching As It Burns\u2019, which has a feel of Kiss with that big, soaring hook of a chorus.<\/p>\n

But where the album really comes into its own is with the glorious stomp of \u2018The One That Almost Got Away\u2019, which features a bubbly hook as Vaughn croons over a simple yet breezy guitar and solid drum backbone. As one would expect with such exceptional talents, Burning Kingdom know how to write a huge, catchy chorus, and \u2018The One That Almost Got Away\u2019 boasts just that.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing overtly complicated about the sound or the structure of the songs; just a dose of good harmonious rock with occasional 80s-inspired keyboard effects. However, it\u2019s not all lightweight pomp. \u2018Killing Time\u2019, despite its breezy intro, offers more weight musically and lyrically as Vaughn adopts a darker edge to his voice over a menacing riff. But for the most part this is a melodic rock album that offers the shuffling glory of \u2018Falling Down\u2019, the sprightly drive of \u2018From On High\u2019 and the keyboard-driven title track which features the immortal line of, \u201cDon\u2019t want to hear from all those Facebook crazies, just wanna turn you on and keep you that way\u201d<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Simplified<\/em> is a harmless melodic rock album that thankfully relies more on the class rather than the cheese, and with Danny Vaughn at the helm the band couldn\u2019t exactly go wrong. And for an accomplished, breezy platform to float from, Burning Kingdom\u2019s new opus is ideal for take-off.<\/p>\n

Neil Arnold<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BURNING KINGDOMSimplified Avispa (2013)Rating: 8\/10 Those of you familiar with late 80s and early 90s melodic metal may recall a criminally underrated New York City band called Tyketto who were fronted by Danny Vaughn. Well, now he\u2019s the new lead vocalist for international melodic hard rock band Burning Kingdom who has just released their third […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,904],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-album-ep-reviews","category-burning-kingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16292"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16292\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16300,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16292\/revisions\/16300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}