BURDEN: Scorched Earth

Release year: 2023
Label: Rock ‘n’ Roll Disgrace/Rebellion Records

Tough guy hardcore is a term familiar to anyone into the harder edge of punk music. You know, bands from New York or some such singing about the reality of the streets and the hardships of life with gruff, shouted vocals and gang choruses.

Recently, within the newer breed of oi! bands, there’s been a pronounced kinship to such bands. Tough guy oi!, if you will. Of course, NYHC and tough guy hardcore evolved from oi! in the first place, but it sort of seems like there’s currently a certain flowback from hardcore to oi!, resulting in a new breed of tough-as-nails, angry and defiant oi! with a definite hardcore edge to it.

US act Burden are definitely part of this new breed. It’s not very surprising, considering the band consists of people who’ve been involved in the US hardcore scene for years. There’s a heaviness and an aggressive edge to the sound, which clearly shows shared DNA with hardcore.

Instead of the more typical brickwall sound, with its characteristic lack of groove and swing, Burden’s aggressive heaviness comes from a steamroller midtempo beat, tungsten heavy riffs and the hostile snarl courtesy of Andy Fletcher – not the much missed Depeche Mode guy, mind you. In true fashion for heavy and hard street rock & roll, whether it be oi! or hardcore, Burden don’t so much coax as violently hammer sounds out of their instruments.

It’s not all violence, though: The Hour is an atmopsheric interlude towards the end of the album, with acoustic guitars and the sound of wind blowing. This accentuates another aspect of Burden, which goes beyond the strictest ken of both hardcore and oi!; a certain epic quality to the music, which speaks of nobler things that transcend the mere mundane.

And in doing so, I find myself thinking of perhaps my favourite band operating within oi! at the moment: Live By The Sword. No, Burden don’t cross over into metal territory, particularly not the epic and black metal elements Live By The Sword are wont to utilize, but here and there, Burden reach for the same kind of ambitious, epic atmosphere.

All of this is reflected in the cover art, which – again, in the spirit of many other newer oi! bands – eschews streetwise imagery of alleys and rundown tenement blocks for more timeless, martial imagery of shields and swords. This is certainly something that’s becoming a thing within oi!, looking beyond the strictest confines of the genre to more ancient martial imagery and a more classic warrior ethos. And if the style of the artwork somehow looks familiar, don’t be surprised: vocalist Fletcher has provided art for a great many oi! and hardcore albums in recent years.

I must admit that Burden crashed pretty much from nowhere onto my radar. I’d never heard of them until Rebellion Records announced their repress of the already sold out album. And I can understand Rebellion’s enthusiasm – and the fans’. Because this really is a damn solid, damn convincing debut album. It’s not entirely unique in the current oi! scene, but it is one of the strongest proponents of this newer, harder, more hardcore sound and this new perspective on the in itself rather familiar, utterly masculine thematics of pride, strength, loyalty and an unbending will to fight.

So yeah, “tough guy oi!” might be a bit of a snide remark, but Burden does embody it to a tee. Pronouncedly gruff and tough, clearly indebted to hardcore, tough as nails and unrelenting – tough guy music. But that’s not a bad thing or a diss. Burden do what they do admirably well.

Visit Burden on Bandcamp