Finnish BURNING POINT are back with their third effort, after some contractual problems with their old label LMP, which apparently delayed things quite a bit. Now with also German label Metal Heaven, they have taken on a full-time keyboard player and seem to have tuned down their remarkable pyromaniac tendency in the lyrics (only the title track has something with fire in the title), but other than that they are still following down the path they had chosen in the past as well.

Pete Ahonen, mastermind of the Finns, is still burning the strings of his guitar, as opener "Parasite" proves with a vengeance. A great lead sets off this firecracker, accompanied with thundering double-bass and a very catchy chorus, a blistering start to this album, which raises the hopes for another highly unoriginal, but all the more enjoyable album. Now keyboards had not been a stranger on previous effort "Feeding The Flames" either, but here they have been upped a bit, which becomes evident right after in "Heart Of Gold", which brings us Melodic Metal in the style of the Eighties with a generous portion of the keyboards.

Those basically are the two extremes between which BURNING POINT have positioned their sound, which in the end reminded me more than once of a cross between Scandinavian Power Metal and old DOMAIN, which might not sound all that intriguing at first listen, but after a while unfolds its own charm, be it double-bass breakers such as "Hell Awaits" or the STRATOVARIUS influenced "To Hell And Back" (hm, we have "hell" twice, so a connection to fire again, the pyromania is back...), some more epic stuff in form of "Icebound" or also more mid- to faster paced songs such as "Deceiver" or the title track.

Overall "Burned Down The Enemy" is, as said, not very original, but very well written, played and produced, so that as a genre fan you can hardly make a mistake by picking this up, not the truly big stuff, but definitely worth your money!

(Online February 1, 2007)