Our Lady Peace Burns

When it comes to big rock bands, they don't really come any bigger than Our Lady Peace. Over the course of their seven album career this group of Canucks has totally decimated the Billboard chart and played just about every place on the North American continent while building a massive and rabid fan base. This is truly a group that has seen and done it all and still continue to crank out hit albums as if it were second nature to them. Their latest album, Burn Burnis of course is yet another giant rock monster in their discography and only further establishes their ever growing status.

While looking a bit ominous and foreboding, Burn Burn actually marks a sense of rebirth for Our Lady Peace. Now having complete artistic freedom, it seems as if the band has been liberated from the shackles of creative restraint and allowed to fly away much like the disturbed individual on the cover of Burn Burn. It must have been refreshing to have that kind of freedom because Our Lady Peace have come up with a record that is big in the biggest sense imaginable. In fact, the songs that make up Burn Burn are so utterly gargantuan and epic that stadiums can't even hold them in; they're that huge.

Our Lady Peace are pretty much the definition of what an humongous rock band is and Burn Burnis pretty much the definition of epic rock. Commercial, slick and polished brighter than bars of platinum, Burn Burn is a massively catchy, melodic work that is so precise and so deadly in it's aim that it's almost unavoidable to miss the hooks. This is an album that lures you in with power ballads, massive guitar riffs, soaring vocals, and choruses that a two year old could sing along to. Once it does suck you in it will refuse to let you go until you submit to it's charms. While I normally have a hard time getting my head around records of this kind simply because of the commerciality, I found myself desk drumming to this record.

At times sounding like an more AOR version of U2, it's easy to see why Our Lady Peace has become as successful as they have. This is clearly a band that knows how to write a proper rock album; they've got presence and they've got the songwriting skills. Burn Burn might not be cutting edge but after seven albums does that even matter anymore? Burn Burn is a solid, mature effort that's absolutely massive and destined for great things.