Track By Tracks: Burn The Ocean - Modern Ruins (2023)

1. ALMOST GONE:

 

The opener of Modern Ruins it’s of the most energetic and fast songs of the album and it’s also my favorite. The song rhythm is built upon a succession of even and odd measures (7/8 for the nerds!) but the vocal parts mask those polyrhythms and give the impression of running in a straight line. It’s quite an aggressive song that is based upon a very effective riff which is used also as a sort of breakdown in the middle section. The chorus is very epic and tragic and you can hear simple chords which give follows and accents the rhythm serving as a base for a very cool arpeggio recalled from the intro of the song. I think this is where you can hear my metal influences the most. Lyrically speaking this song touches me really deeply because it’s a sort of dialogue between me and my beloved mother which is unfortunately passed away in 2017. As suggested by the title, I still and ever will feel her presence so to me, she’s almost gone. We recently shot a super cinematic video for this song which will be our second single of the album.

2. PRECIOUS THINGS:

We have chosen this song as the first single of the album and that’s because I find it to be the perfect link between our musical past and the band we are now. There’s an iconic riff at the beginning which serves as the main theme of the song. It’s quite a slow-paced song, with stoner influences yet very melodic. There’s a very effective turnover between my voice in the chorus and Emanuele’s. The song explodes in the last section which reminds me of the best NIRVANA. Lyrically speaking the song is about the struggle we face to leave some sort of mark on planet earth before our time here will be over.. something which can survive us, something we leave behind for the ones we love. We shot a video in which you can see us trying to push a trunk in the woods in order to find a place to secure it for eternity. This trunk metaphorically contains our most precious things, the things we love and want to be remembered for.

3. KNIVES:

This is quite a particular song, very personal and dark, with a very moving and epic ending. For most of us, It’s the best of the album, I love it. This is part 1 of a small lyrical concept that aims to explore the theme of isolation. Knives talk about words, which are simple words for many but are like a knife in the back for others. We live in a society where using words in order to make someone else suffer is very easy, you can do it daily from your couch with your mobile phone on social networks and most people think this will not have any consequences, but in fact, it can produce the worst results. Bad words can lead to isolation, strong isolation makes some people suffer badly and it sometimes leads to suicide. We really need to think about this fact, words can sometimes kill.

4. CONFINED:

This is our most radio-ready song of the album and it is also part 2 of the “Isolation Concept”. During the forced isolation due to the pandemic, I sometimes found myself actually liking it. So I thought that living “off the grid” in complete isolation from society could be very attractive to someone and I just pretended to explore this theme with this song.

5. PLASTIC WISDOM:

This is the most southern rock-influenced song of the album and it’s a love letter from Emanuele to some bands such as ZZ TOP or the most recent CLUTCH. The main riff drives the song in a very rock & roll way with a rhythmic crescendo that builds up till the end of the song. This is the perfect example of Emanuele's songwriting as opposed to my style.

6. MORNING LIGHT:

This is a classic power ballad BTO style and yet another example of Emanuele’s songwriting. This is a sort of reflection about the end of a relationship that turned out to be extremely delusional.

7. THE BOTCH:

This is lyrically speaking the lighter song of the album. This is BTO's full ironic mode.. given the darkness and depressive mood of the rest of the songs, we thought that with a little break from such delicate themes like isolation, the moral decay of society, suicide, death, and bad relationships it was time for a laugh. It’s the story of a drunk man in a pub who ignores the warnings of his friends and pursues a wonderful woman drinking at the bar. He succeeds in his mission only to go to the bathroom with her and find out there’s a “surprise” waiting for him. He then tries to run away from this sort of “misunderstanding”. It features a very energetic Pantera-styled riff and a fantastic solo section. This song will make you jump and hopefully make you laugh!

8. THE RUINS:

This is an aggressive and heavy instrumental song. At first, we thought that we could fit some lyrics into it but we didn’t find a proper way to do it. I think that’s mainly because it’s quite technical stuff with a lot of riffs and tempo changes.. so we played it as an instrumental track and got used to it in this form.

9. IN SOLITUDE:

This song has a very cool and groovy riff which alternates constantly with a slow-paced and almost clean part in the verse. It has a very emotional and heavy part towards the end in which I also use some scream vocals. Lyrically speaking I describe humanity as a crowd in a slow and constant migration, which is basically our life. But even if we go down this road together, we all feel alone doing it and we know that as we were born alone, we’ll die like that too.

10. NECESSARY PAIN:

No need to hide me here.. this is clearly a metal song with a small progressive soul. I really love it and it will be a very impressive song when we’ll play it live! I think that’s the hardest song in the album and I’m very proud of my vocal performance on this one. We tried to keep the vocals clean but it was just impossible for me to do it.. it also has a small growl part! It’s a song about the necessary pain we are forced to live through at the moment we lose our innocence and become adults. It’s a sort of violence we all know and that’s what pushes us to grow as men.