HEAVEN SHALL BURN

First, let's establish what kind of beast we have before us. Formally, this is a 2002 album, but any fan of HEAVEN SHALL BURN will tell you that the tracklist looked a bit different and the cover art was different too. It's quite simple: in 2004, this German band moved to Century Media, and three years later, in 2007, the Lifeforce label decided to remix the album, remaster it, rearrange the tracks, remove the intro and replace it with a two-minute bonus, and present it to the public in this form. Either way, we have 49 minutes of material from one of the leaders of the European metalcore scene, HEAVEN SHALL BURN. Let's be objective: in Europe, this genre develops along somewhat different lines than across the Atlantic. On both sides we hear borrowings from the Gothenburg school of melodic death, elements of thrash and so on, but the execution is entirely different. Take thrash, for example: each side literally draws on its own heritage. The album title "Whatever It May Take" itself will remind anyone even slightly familiar with the German heavy scene of track 10 from KREATOR's "Outcast." Perhaps the vocal delivery and use of aggressive hardcore-specific techniques, along with the minor role of guitar solos that often simply repeat the riffs, are the few things preventing us from classifying this release as purely melodic death. Speaking of the added bonus: it's a perfectly adequate replacement for the intro -- a beautiful two-minute acoustic instrumental. Following it is a cover of a song by POINT NO RETURN, a Brazilian straight-edge band. HEAVEN SHALL BURN themselves are extremely fond of political and social themes, preach anti-fascism, and could have been given honorary Greenpeace membership long ago for a number of their lyrics. The disc closes with the song "Implore the Darken Sky," which is played for the second time on the album -- the only difference being that the vocals are entirely clean. It sounds decent, but specifically in this quantity and as a bonus number. On the album proper, the band doesn't indulge in clean vocals, and quite rightly so, as they're completely unnecessary on this record.