The Burning Hell – Happy Birthday

What Is Being Said About The Burning Hell

The Whitehorse STAR – March 14, 2008 – “The Burning Hell may just be the hottest thing to hit the Yukon so far this year. Taking its name from a religious tract, it is an indie folk rock band from Peterborough, Ont.” – Andrew Hoshkiw (full article)

ECHO Weekly COVER STORY – January 10 – 16, 2008 – “Much like the albums that Johnny Cash made toward the end of his life, Happy Birthday is the aural equivalent to the denouement that follows a calamitous party; the dust has settled, moods have tempered and Mathias Kom has sat down to offer up some music that’ll smooth the last rough edges and raw nerves. Over spare instrumentation (acoustic guitar and ukulele are the constants, but mandolin, lap steel, drums, cello and keys occasionally poke through), Kom half- speaks his twisted, sardonic tales of love, woe and late nights with such a deadpan delivery as to be comical in its own way. As could be expected of a record that makes the most of such faux dour beginnings, Happy Birthday inevitably picks up steam as it goes – adding more instrumentation and slightly quicker tempos, but also getting funnier at the same time.” – Bill Adams (link to article)

Montreal Mirror, Mar 07 – “It was with pleasure that I discovered the Burning Hell. The mostly-ukulele music and laugh-inducing lyrics of Mathias Kom stay on the good side of silly, while still maintaining that increasingly scarce sincerity. To wit: ‘Love/it’s like a hurricane /it happens in Florida/and gets into everything,’ or ‘Love/it’s like a monster truck/it fills up whole stadiums/and it crushes smaller trucks.”

BeatRoute Magazine Nov 07 – “The Burning Hell is an intriguing combination of musical prowess and lyrical perversive-ness put together with a keen eye for the details. Tick Tock was released in 2006 but over a year later it still deserves to be noticed and heard. The first track “I Love The Things That People Make” is a catchy tune that is subtly complex beyond its seemingly simple lyrics like “I love the ginsu knives I love the garden gnomes/I love the way people decorate their homes,” which is as subversive as anything really. Kom manages a seemingly impossible combination of cynicism and hope recorded over the rock version of folk music instrumentation.”

The Arthur, Best Albums of 06 – “Tick Tock is a beautiful collection of brand-spankin’ new songs written by The Burning Hell (a.k.a. Mathias Kom), and performed by a collection of local musicians and instruments ranging from melodica and ukulele to Charlie Glasspool and Jenny Gleeson. The songs are full of Mathias’ typical tongue in cheek “suck it up and get on with it” sense of humour intertwined with a very honest raw painting of life as we know it around these parts.”

wolveshawksandkites Dec 10 07 – I was instantly caught off guard by the album’s quirky charm. Kom’s deadpan baritone draws immediate attention to the black comedy behind his lyrics (“We’ll never get married/ I’m dating your sister/ and everything you believe is a lie”) and the ukulele doesn’t play nearly as much of a pivotal role as I’d expected. Often accompanied by drums, strings or left-field instruments like accordion, melodica and glockenspiel, and featuring complementary backing vocals and duets, I actually forgot the “ukulele sensation” prefix as I listened to Happy Birthday and instead just enjoyed it as a charming folk album.

Kim Jong-Il, Dear Leader, Official North Korean Peoples’ Guide to the Canadian Indie Music Scene – “Revolutionary… The Burning Hell makes me want to tear down large statues of myself in public squares and replace them with even larger ones!”