My Inner Burning – Eleven Scars

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The last couple of years haven’t been very good for the umbrella-genre of female fronted metal, and to be quite blunt records like this don’t help. My Inner Burning are a German metal band that play fairly indistinct, modern melodic metal. Their debut record two years ago wasn’t exactly spectacular, but it definitely had potential – their singer was decent, with the music itself in a similar vein to polish goths UnSun or a lighter version of fellow German female-fronted metallers Deadlock. It had some utterly terrible lyrics in places, but it also had some pretty good songs such as Guide To Fame And Wealth and Head On A Plate. In comparison, Eleven Scars is a real step in the wrong direction. The band have made a conscious move to incorporate a slightly more rock and pop orientated sound, but this hasn’t come to any benefit of the music at all. Eleven Scars doesn’t have any sharper pop hooks; it just has a more diluted sound. It’s well produced, well played – singer Becky Gaber still continues to sound pretty good – and one can’t deny that they have at least some capacity for creating melody. There’s also a noticeable improvement in the lyrical content, coming off as far less trite than on their debut. It’s just that mostly this feels like a record without any real distinction – a collection of acceptable songs that leave no lasting impression on the listener; bland and lacking in personality. Frankly there’s starting to be far too many bland albums in this genre, and it’s aggravating to add another to the list. This band could do better.

Written by James Donovan
More: 2011, Albums, Female-fronted, Heavy Metal, Quick.Play Reviews, My Inner Burning