Well go figure. Sinner has always been a bit of a dark horse in the metal genre. We all know this is Matt Sinner's outlet for his hard/blues rock jones, but the band still gets cred because of Sinner's inarguable pedigree with Primal Fear and his undeniable guitar prowess. However, lately with Primal Fear turning to suck, and Sinner's last album Mask Of Sanity being such a piece of rotten shit, I was expecting this to be another signpost along the way to crapopolis. Happily, while Crash And Burn is only barely a metal album, it is a lot of fun anyway.
The title track/opener kicks off with what you can expect from this: heavy chugging riffs and a lot of energy. Some of this album just kills, like the kicking "Unbreakable" and the high-speed careen of "Fist To Face". Some of this is too damned blues-rock for my taste, like "The Dog" and the weepy ballad "Until It Hurts". Matt's guitar work remains enjoyable throughout, and his vocals sound better than they have in years. There's a lot of good-but-not great songs on here, and it gets mellower as it goes on, all the way to the one-two crapfest of "Little Head" and "Connection", which have queer choruses, but are still packed with hooky riffs.
So this is not a serious album, but it rocks. If you get nostalgic for the kind of glossy, commercial hard-rock we used to get back in the late 80's, then this is not to be missed. Fans of more serious music will, however, want to avoid Crash And Burn like the plague.
