Old Spirit - Burning in Heaven

A Violet-Stained Sky: Old Spirit's Heavy Metal is "Burning in Heaven" (Video Premiere)


Though in many ways a callback to early heavy metal, Old Spirit seems to go one step further in terms of being a primordial substance. Gloriously lo-fi, packed with reverb and indulgent synthesizer textures, their new album Burning in Heaven celebrates the genre’s early avant-garde creativity by intentionally dialing that all the way up. Helmed by Vanishing Kids guitarist Jason Hartman, the band’s approach to heavy metal includes everything from electronic music to death metal, but seems most comfortably rooted in riff-based doom metal. That’s a solid springboard to start from, and Hartman takes advantage of its flexibility as he bends and snaps genre clichés to achieve his vision of celestial, inflamed heavy metal.

We’re premiering the video for title track “Burning in Heaven” below, which frames Hartman in shades of jarring neon and sepia. This track especially highlights Old Spirit’s genre mixing: a simple backbeat plays throughout the song as the riffs shift from death to thrash to pure groovy doom, vocals whisper and reverberate, and all number of unusual instruments make themselves known throughout. It feels somewhat like a mashup in the hands of a skilled DJ, actually, stitching fragmented memories of heavy metal history into a new, bizarre tapestry.

Hartman comments:

“Burning In Heaven” is the title track for Old Spirit’s second album.. musically this track combines elements of early thrash, NWOBHM and death metal with electronic and classical seasonings! Early Metallica, Mercyful Fate, Celtic Frost and Death are definite influences here. Lyrically this song deals with anti religious themes. I believe spirituality is individual, I am not an atheist. However, I feel organized religion can be a very dangerous thing.

Burning in Heaven releases February 24th via Bright as Night.