The Burning Hell - Public Library (2016)

The seventh Burning Hell album is a collection of eight short stories drawn from different sections of the bookshelf of the brain. A murder mystery rubs shoulders with a biography, while a romance leans against a prison diary. There's a killer priest, a nameless band lost in Yorkshire, and Elvis and Michael Jackson moonwalking their way into space and/or global annihilation. Despair and hope go hand in hand here, and although Mathias Kom's songwriting has never been wordier, the stories never stranger, and the band never louder, the essence of The Burning Hell remains constant: life is not really so bad. The Burning Hell is the alter-ego of Canadian songwriter Mathias Kom, and the band has been on the road in one form or another since 2007, playing everywhere from festivals like Glastonbury and Dawson City to bars, living rooms, abandoned bunkers, and a mental asylum in rural France. Musically, The Burning Hell runs the gamut from introspective folk to hyperactive rock and roll, and so the band can adapt to its surroundings like a karma of anthropomorphic chameleons, taking the audience on a supermarket-cart ride through hooky, upbeat pop songs, dark ballads about pet euthanasia, and anthems for barbarians, economic conferences, and love.