Burn Your Wings (Jewish Metal)

A little about our band philosophy:

"From Gothenburg to Jerusalem" is a muscial undertaking which chronicles Burn Your Wings' musical pilgrimage throughout their early existence. We believe that the backbone of what defines metal stems from the use of heavy percussive elements, and that different genres of metal are defined largely by two things: /P
1. The arrangement of percussive elements, and 2. The decoration of percussive elements with "riffs". /P
Burn Your Wings, as a band, has decided that our use of the first item in our genre definition will concentrate on mirroring what was done with the war drums of ancient times. Tempo changes, time signature changes, use of dynamics and polyrhythms are all tools in our belt. We do not try to define ourselves in terms of music that is currently "popular" - i.e. "blast beats", "breakdowns", etc., because this adopts flash-in-the-pan terminology at the expense of concepts which are thousands of years old. What bands are really trying to do with these tools is use percussion to drive the level of energy of the listener upward, similarly to the way war drums were used long ago. Bands who try hard to be "straight up" and avoid using "breakdowns" are really limiting the percussive palette from which they choose, and are losing a lot of the ability to make dynamic, memorable, interesting and exciting songs. Cryptopsy - None so Vile, Vital Remains - Dechristianize, and Malevolent Creation - Eternal are three examples of death metal albums that are universally appreciated as being "straight up", but which contain "breakdowns" by the definitions given by metal heads themselves. Bands that try to be "chaotic" or "technical" usually try to defy constructs of traditional music theory. This is unfortunate, because the evolution of music theory is one which has come about because of emprical evidence; i.e. theorists have agreed that organization of rhythms into time signatures, and of scales into predefined intervals has led to significant emotional response from listeners. Ignoring certain concepts of music theory only prevents artists from being able to manipulate the emotions and energy level of their listeners, forcing them to add instructions into their songs (proven by the amount of times front men say "move:, and "let me see a circle pit", etc.). The bottom line is that there is no reason for avoiding the use of any musical tools if your goal is to write songs that interact with your listener, and you want to know how do do it. Burn Your Wings takes careful consideration to write songs that will get people to "move" or headbang without having to ask them to do it./P
As to the second point above, there has evolved a set of musical scales that metal bands seem to use exclusively. Power metal bands seem to make heavy use of major scales, a lot of metalcore bands are using riffs that stem from the "Gothenburg" sound pioneered by bands like At the Gates, and now evident in the music of...well, almost every single metal band out there (Think As Blood Runs Black, As I Lay Dying, Killswitch Engage, etc. etc.). Burn Your Wings has made the connection that elements of metal that seem to most powerfully convey themselves to listeners are akin to the muscial modes of the prayer music of the Jewish people. Nile's use of egyptian modes is a great example of a bands use of alternative musical modes to relate a different flavor of metal to listeners. Our concentration on using what we call "Israeli Riffs" is an attempt to decorate our percussive structures with a unique flavor, that will hopefully provide a powerful avenue upon which we can convey meaning to our listeners.

The bottom line is that Burn Your Wings wants to write great music, and though we are new at what we are trying, we hope that listeners from all genres will be able to get something out of our music, and will enjoy coming to our shows. We wish that one day, people would realize that music of all genres is an attempt to reach listeners in a way in which words alone fail. Leather-jacket-wearing metalheads, emo scene kids, punk rockers, and hip hop crews are all welcome to listen to our music, since we listen to all of theirs. We hope that people who listen to our first album will hear a progression away from contemporary musical trappings, albeit small, and that they would find something enjoyable and memorable in what we do. We appreciate any thoughtful feedback you might have.