Burning Flag’s 3rd album Matador is equal parts crushing, subterranean, atmospheric and galloping momentum. It has a heavy dose of the sonics of modern metal, but at it’s heart it is political punk.

Dismissing Burning Flag as “Scathing Northern Punk Noise” as they claim on Facebook would be selling them short. Their music will be right up your alley if you love a bit of the old “crust”. Where metal meets punk, with pounding drums and anarcho attitude. They’ve listened to rule number one of punk: hit the drums hard. Downtuned guitars with the odd minor chord ooze heaviness with the metally tone providing a satisfying elastic twang from single strings here and there. Combined with the crushing bass sound, at times the music is dark enough to sound subterranean. There are brief moments where they have a more atmospheric feel with a hint of Killing Joke and the death rock sound. Whilst they start off at breakneck speed, Burning Flag don’t rely on this gimmick, using heaviness and good driving riffs to power the album along.

New addition Holly, formerly of Kiss Me Killer, has a strong voice which you’d need to power through the mix. Whilst mostly their style follows the strained shouting hardcore pattern she sometimes actually sings. This gives Burning Flag some variety to make them stand out from the crowd of crusty doomy political punk bands. Backing vocals punctuate the odd song here and there to good effect.

Heavy extended mid sections are almost songs in their own right without feeling incongruous. This shows a creative approach to songs reaching beyond simple verse, chorus, middle bit, and allows them to get away with a few songs beyond the magic 3 minute mark without sounding sluggish.

Matador explores themes of mysogyny, toxic masculinity and government corruption with some class war punk rock politics thrown in (Eat The Rich). Well chosen samples punctuate and accentuate the messages. Socio-political or personal-political, it’s rooted in relevance and anger at actual shit going on rather than bland theory. This is the power of political punk. It can make issues relevant that many on the left will turn into such bland sloganeering as to make you switch off. It’s a shame it has limited reach but bands like Burning Flag have the potential to appeal to a metal audience as well as punks. (...) (Nathan / Louder Than War)

TRACK LISTING:

A1 . Thrown Out
A2 . Man Up
A3 . Ghost Skin
A4 . Broken Britain
A5 . Matador
B1 . Toxic By Design
B2 . Eat The Rich
B3 . Vendetta
B4 . Step Back
B5 . All The While

Listen: → Stream (External Website)