Unlike many of their contemporaries, Anthem never actually released any bad albums. They just laid low for a while when the nineties inevitably ruined the music business for traditional heavy metal. They did, however, struggle a little bit with how many productional traits associated with power metal they should incorporate into their music after they reunited in the early twenty-first century. After all, Anthem was always best when they made ballsy, uncomplicated heavy metal – which why ‘Immortal’ is still my favorite album of theirs. ‘Burning Oath’ is one of the few Anthem albums that strikes a perfect balance between traditional and contemporary.
Keyboards and hypermelodic choruses have not completely disappeared from Anthem’s music, especially the latter are fairly prominent here, but after two albums on which the riffs kind of took a back seat to melodicism, ‘Burning Oath’ turns the tables. The album is chock-full of meaty riffs from the Accept and Judas Priest school of heavy metal, which combined with one of Eizo Sakamoto’s best vocal performances ever to be recorded creates a highly enjoyable album that is low on pretense and high on headbanging memorability. Where the live staples on ‘Black Empire’ and ‘Heraldic Device’ were immediately obvious, ‘Burning Oath’ is solid all the way through.
Because of this newly restored balance, the sporadic times when the pseudo-symphonic leanings of early 2000s power metal do crop up, they make much more of an impact than on most post-reunion Anthem albums. ‘Ghost In The Flame’, for instance, is largely a grinding midtempo track with a highly dramatic chorus, but the little bombastic touches added to the outro really help the otherwise overlong finale get off the ground. Elsewhere, ‘Unbroken Sign’ has a bit of an adventurous vibe, which is only enhanced by adding synthesized strings and layered guitar arrangements.
Like Anthem as a whole, however, ‘Burning Oath’ is best when it hits the gas for some riff-based heavy metal. ‘Struggle Action’ kicks up the tempo a notch without moving too far into thrash territory, whereas opener ‘Evil One’ is an excellent moodsetter with its strong build-up and surprisingly pounding chorus. ‘Face To The Core’ doesn’t get talked about quite as much, but damn if that is not a tasteful slice of moderately fast, dynamic heavy metal. ‘On And On’ is a little more melodic, but built upon a cool playful riff and would open the band’s live shows on the ‘Burning Oath’ tour. Guitarist Akio Shimizu is usually responsible for the more power metal-ish moments and his best contribution this time is the powerful closer ‘Dance Alone’.
If you cannot fault bassist and band leader Naoto Shibata for anything, it would be dubious quality control. Anthem albums are always the very best they can put out at that particular moment. The best they could was just slightly better than usual on ‘Burning Oath’. Its follow-up ‘Absolute World’ shared many of this album’s strengths, though Sakamoto had sadly left the band before it was created. He certainly left the band while he was at his peak – post-reunion Sakamoto is the best singer Anthem has ever had. Anthem is still going strong and releasing worthwhile albums to this day. ‘Burning Oath’ can even be compared favorably to some of their classic works.
Recommended tracks: ‘Evil One’, ‘Unbroken Sign’, ‘Face The Core’, ‘Dance Alone’
Order ‘Burning Oath’ from nearly anywhere in the world at CD Japan below
Kevy Metal 
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