Album Reviews

I didn’t know anything about The Burning Of Rome going into “Year Of The Ox” and as a result I fell from one surprise into the next. As this album proves, that is not always a good thing. There’s really no easy way to describe this band’s sound so let’s take it one song at a time.

The title track comes with all the bombast of gothic metal, including the siren-like vocals and plenty of string arrangements. “God Of Small Things” sounds like Coldplay after Chris Martin finally had his sex change. Up next is “Terrible Tales From Tocqueville”, which wouldn’t look out of place on the soundtrack of a western with a gothic twist. And then there’s “Space Age Stockholm Syndrome” which plays out as something that - with all of its cheesiness - would work wonderfully at the Eurovision Song Contest. Enya also came to mind. After that they go Rammstein-lite on our asses with “Better Than He”. And that’s just the first half of the album.

If you spend your days going to LARP conventions or if you are that one person who thought the “Cowboys & Aliens” remake was a good movie, you will probably think “Year Of The Ox” is the best thing you ever heard. I just wanted it to stop.