BURNING POINT – The Ignitor

Burning Point is a Finnish Power Metal band founded back in 1999. The Ignitor is their fifth full length album. During their earlier albums, Burning Point focused heavily on recreating a Neo-Classical / Power Metal style made famous by bands like Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force and Rainbow. However, the band reached a climax with their previous 2009 release, Empyre, which featured a polished modern and darker sound. With their latest release, The Ignitor, Burning Point isn’t quite able to recreate the magic they accomplished on Empyre, but instead they revert back to a lighter style from their earlier releases.

Burning Point’s signature sound relies heavily on three main components; profound neo-classical guitar riffs, airy keyboard rhythms, and bold high pitched vocals. Vocalist Pete Ahonen has been with the band since its inception. On this album he utilized his full range on nearly every track. Some tracks he will perform with a high pitched scream, and others he uses a lower, grainy style. Because of this diversity, Ahonen comes off as the hero of this album, often leaving the repetitive guitar and keyboard riffs falling behind. Ahonen is also one of the two lead guitarists in Burning Point, so his involvement with the musicianship ends up playing a very key role. Being that he is a man with two very credible talents, it may serve the band better if he chose to harness one instead of both.

Regarding the compositions in general, each of the tracks are well written and complete. However, there is something lacking with the full execution of performance which leaves the listener with a somewhat empty feeling. There seems to be a deficiency of passion coming from the guitar riffs, vocals, and production; or combination thereof. There is some element that is preventing this album from being an all out stellar performance; it simply fails to hold a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm looking at it from an overall perspective.

The album does begin relatively strong with the opening track “Eternal Flame”. There are powerful melodies and riffs which drive this song from start to finish. Ahonen also performs using an extreme high tenor that evokes a significant amount of theatrical fury. Unfortunately, this is really the only truly powerful track on the entire album. As the album progresses it continues to fizzle out as the songs are devoid of fervor and tend to sound somewhat repetitive.

Obviously, The Ignitor is a big disappointment, especially when attempting to follow up a very good quality album in Empyre. Ahonen’s side project, Stargazery, also released a formidable strong album in 2010. Hopefully, the creative juices have not been used up and we can expect greater things to come.