Album Review: Many Things – Burn Together
2 min read
Many Things have been building up to their debut album Burn Together for a few years now. Alpha Romeo was released back in 2012, and they’ve released three singles and an EP through 2014 up to now. With only four brand new songs appearing on Burn Together, it could have easily fallen flat and simply not been worth the time. Luckily, there’s some good news to be had.
Burn Together is actually an exciting debut. Their sound is a nice blend of rock and electronic elements, with the mix of actual instruments and synthesized sounds blending together in a natural manner. There are some diverse influences, too: Dear One verges towards house music with its drum beats, with the amazing piano melodies keeping it from straying too far from the album’s sound. Alpha Romeo is a straight indie rock track, making good use of wordless backing vocals and a low-key brass sample to strengthen the chorus. The remainder fall somewhere between the two styles, as either a blend of the two or one of them. It makes for a fresh debut and a welcome change from the usual.
The album’s only road block is Paranoid People Meet In the Middle, a single from 2014. While it’s not a bad song, it’s got a straight two minutes of heavily altered vocals before leading into an abstract electronic section, and as a whole is distinctly less straight forward than the rest of the songs. After an extra listen or two it starts to grow on you, so give it a chance before writing it off. Even when he’s heavily edited like he is here, Michael Tomlinson’s voice is something to behold with its strength and deeper tone; quite often it’s the factor that makes weaker songs like 77 and Heaven more enjoyable. It’s especially strong on the piano ballad turned dance track What We Are, which closes the album on its strongest song.
While it is mostly a collection of older material with a few weaker songs thrown in, there’s still a lot of material to enjoy on Burn Together. They’ve got a strong sound that makes for a coherent album even as it moves between electronic and rock songs, with Gabi Woo’s keys and Tomlinson’s vocals tying the package together. Even if it’s a few new tracks short of greatness, Burn Together is a debut album well worth experiencing.
