REVIEW: Finch – ‘What It Is To Burn X – Live At The Glasshouse’

February 21st, 2014

Brenton Harris

Artist: Finch
Album: What It Is To Burn X – Live At The Glasshouse
Genre: Rock, Screamo

In the Australian summer of 2002, I was a shaggy-haired, punk rock-obsessed kid embarking on a journey to musical and personal discovery. After years spent as a devout follower of all things Fat Wreck, Kung Fu, Nitro, Drive Thru and Epitaph, I found myself searching for bands that combined all my favourite elements into one sound. As luck would have it, a pen-pal of mine (remember those?) who was a street-teamer for Drive Thru, sent me a copy of an album called What It Is To Burn by Finch, with a note that simply stated “this is what you’ve been looking for.” With equal parts intrigue and excitement, I put the CD into my Discman and pressed play, and the rest as they say is (not so recent) history. For from the moment “New Beginnings” brought the album bursting to life it was apparent that this was the record that I had been looking for. A near perfect blend of the hardcore, pop-punk, and post-hardcore sounds I loved, served up in 13 powerful, emotive and effortlessly relatable slabs of awesome, the album had me at “Hand me downs and photographs” and kept me entrenched till the last anguished screams of “What It Is To Burn.”

The melodic sensibility, the progressive tendencies, the expert production and the side order of street cred courtesy of Daryl Palumbo’s appearance on two tracks, had me pontificating that Finch were about to become the biggest band in the world. And then I broke up with my girlfriend and the album became the soundtrack to the first great mutual heartbreak, and “Letters To You” became my high school house party calling card. Fast forward 12 years and an older, wiser but still shaggy-haired 28-year-old version of me sits staring with great trepidation at the play button on an advance stream of What It Is To Burn X, the new release from the reformed Finch that documents the 10th anniversary tour of What It Is To Burn that the band undertook in 2012-2013. After all these years, would the record still connect with me the way that it did when I was 16? Had my tastes and experiences changed me so much over the years that I wouldn’t be able to feel the record the way I used to? What if I didn’t like what I heard? Would I be better off letting the record hover in untouchable realm of nostalgia? Undeterred, I clicked play.

Within moments I was a passenger riding in a musical DeLorean and loving every minute of the journey. As the thunderous roar of the crowd was punctuated by the instantly familiar into riff of “New Beginnings” all my fears for the record began to drift away, and at once I found myself singing along to every word. In fact, I became so caught up in the energy of the performance and the nostalgic overload it was causing that it wasn’t until the first few notes of “Perfection Through Silence” that I remembered that I was meant to be writing this review. With my analytical mind awakened I restarted the record and was thrilled with what I found.

What It Is To Burn X sounds exactly like what a live record should sound like, with the combination of a perfect mix, a raucous hometown crowd and an energetic performance making it feel like you are at show. The band is on fire from the outset, as they deliver blistering renditions of all 13 tracks of What It Is To Burn plus “Worms of the Earth” and “New Kid.” The songs sound as fresh and as relevant as ever, with vocalist Nate Barcalow putting in a powerful and emotive performance that cuts perfectly through the chaos on “Project Mayhem,” just as effectively as he croons over the likes of smash “Letters To You” and my personal favourite, “Post Script.” The combination of this vocal performance (and that of the crowd who can be heard throatily singing along for the whole of the record) and the outstanding performance of the rest of the band (seriously, the guitars of Randy Strohmeyer and Alex Linares sound immense and the rhythm section of drummer Alex Pappas and bassist Daniel Wonacott is in devastating form) ensures that What It Is To Burn X isn’t just a live recording, it’s the sound of a band finally beginning to realise the extent of their own potential.

As new life is breathed into tracks like “Stay With Me,” “Three Simple Words” and “Ender,” you get the sense that new life is being breathed into the band, and the result is a live record that sounds every bit as good and every bit as poignant as the recorded work. In fact, as the crushing intro of finale “What It Is To Burn” gives way to the loudest sing-a-long of the night, I find myself seriously debating whether this version of What It Is To Burn and this version of Finch might somehow have found a way to surpass the original. As a fan that is an exciting thought, but as a critic it’s downright tantalizing. Finch never really lived up to the potential they showed the first time around, but if the way they sound live on What It Is To Burn X is anything to go by, they might just be on the verge of doing so in the future.

What It Is To Burn X – Live is more than a soundtrack for a fond trip down memory lane, it’s a reawakening, for a record, for a band and for their fans.

SCORE: 9/10