Album Review: “Vicarious Disclosures” – Slow Burning Car

Slow Burning Car Slow Burning Car present an album that skillfully combines a variety of influences, creating a diverse and captivating sound. ‘Vicarious Disclosures‘ has rock as its foundation and base.

With the guts to experiment!

With a boldness for experimenting down new musical paths, the band presents an album that definitely deserves your attention. Although they're rooted in rock, they seem to be constantly on the hunt for new modes of expression, outside the usual boundaries. Drawing influence from various musical genres, they craft a sound that's fresh, full of vitality and authenticity. Their ability to bring out different facets of their influences is the key trait that sets them apart. Through these they compose that signature sound of theirs, packed with little surprises, which leaves the listener eager for the next track.

The record consists of 10 songs, 9 of which are their own compositions, plus one particular cover. But before we get to almost the end of the record, we'll need to go through their own ideas first.

Slow Burning Car combine and draw influences from different genres of music, managing to deliver a record with cohesion and excellent flow.

The album opens with the song "Shapeless Faceless", a particularly melodic track, with some punk roots and an entirely British tone. A signature element of the record is the way it showcases these punk ideas and details that make it such a distinctive piece. Songs like "Hardtime Walking", but also "Cyanide Planes" with its most clear-cut punk style and its uplifting character, stand as excellent examples of the punk rock influences that show up across the album.

On the other hand, "Millionaire” comes with a more country-inspired sound for its intro, while on “B.F.U” the Slow Burning Car showcase a more glam/hard rock profile, upbeat and full of life, that calls you to move to their rhythm.

What really breaks the pattern is “A Winter’s Purge” a track that shows the band's ability to combine different elements, delivering an excellent result. It's a composition that starts with a distorted Pink Floyd-esque intro and evolves into a dynamic track, with an epic chorus, heavier, hard rock riffs and neoclassical touches in the solo.

What really breaks the pattern is "A Winter’s Purge".

However, the album's biggest surprise is the cover of the classic Iron Maiden song, “Wasted Years“. With an unorthodox intro featuring bouzouki, the Slow Burning Car bring out their creativity and their own take on the song. At first glance the combination of bouzouki with Iron Maiden might seem pretty wrong, but the Slow Burning Car manage to give us an unexpectedly interesting and memorable cover.