Fleetburner - Fleetburner (Butler Records) review by Sam Thomas Fleetburner (the project) is the brainchild of Dutch guitarist and songwriter Kevin Storm. The musicians taking part include some very well-known names from the world of metal, and some lesser known names from other genres. First of all, this is a concept album: one person (Kevin Storm) has had the idea, and then brought it to life with musicians that have worked under his direc�on. Nothing wrong with that: Alan Parsons did much the same, as (more recently) did Ayreon. It’s a bit like building Stonehenge, really, you just have to convince a lot of other people of the concept and then just get them all to work together to produce a work of unparalleled excellence. It’s a bit like building Stonehenge, really, you just have to convince a lot of other people of the concept and then just get them all to work together to produce a work of unparalleled excellence. So, what’s the concept? Well, it’s all about the Fleetburner. And that’s where the cracks begin to show. What’s a Fleetburner? Uh, well, it’s a concept. A concept of what? Uh, well, dunno. Burning stuff? Boats? Lots of boats? The album cover is a nondescript piece of grey rock with (probably) sea, and pictures released along with the singles show boats in various stages of decay. The tracks have nau�cal �tles: “Open Water”, “Below the Waves” and so forth but there’s no coherent story there. OK, now none of this would ma�er if the albumwas brilliant in its own right. If the tracks were all amazing nobody would care. So let’s put all the above aside, and look at the music, without men�oning the “c” word again. The most interes�ng thing about the music is the range of musicians involved (in every sense). One of the only two female vocalists that I can enjoy listening to, Madder Mortem’s Agnete M Kirkevaag, is one of the guest ar�sts on the album. Her powerful vocals are a delight as always. The main male vocalist is Ken Simerly, who is not a name that I know. A bit of research offered up a couple of Country tracks, with a pleasant enough vocal style: I’d actually be interested in hearing more from him. Veli-Ma� Kananen from Finland’s Kalmah is not someone I really knowmuch about, but he has some very pre�y keyboards (the tracks seem to mostly start with a strong keyboard element), so I shall be playing more of him in future. There are contribu�ons from Christopher Amo� and Peter Iwers to represent Swedish dark metal. So, pre�y much a tour of Scandinavia! I think I’ve skirted around the issue enough now. I don’t much like this. The music just isn’t good enough or original enough for me. It’s not the fault of the individual performers, it’s the material itself. There’s just not a lot there: it’s all a bit lite-metal and just doesn’t linger in the memory. If you’re going to have an album like this, which will not achieve its full poten�al without understanding on the part of the listener, then the least that you can do is have words which can be heard. Much of the �me the (not par�cularly exci�ng or interes�ng) music drowns out the vocals. I’d love to explore the idea of “how will you navigate the wild currents of your mind” because that sounds intriguing, but much of the rest of the track (The Beach) is difficult to make out. Then again, some of the lyrics are a bit strained as well: “the ship will reach the desired con�nent” just does not flow! This has apparently taken two years to produce, which is mind-boggling. It’s sad really that so many musicians of such ability could have been involved in something which just doesn’t work. It’s very unfortunate that one of the main things I can say about this is that I won’t remember anything about it by the end of next week. www.facebook.com/fleetburner
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