For those that don’t know, here’s a brief introduction about Dec Burke and his career in music, so far. Dec has been a part of both albums of Darwin‘s Radio, ’Eyes Of The World (2006) and Template For A Generation (2009) as founding member and supplied the guitars & lead vocals. He’s been a part of the second Frost* album from 2008, Experiments In Mass Appeal where he’s listed in the credits as acoustic guitar, vocals. He’s performed with both bands at the Rosfest prog festival (Pennsylvania, USA) in 2007 with Darwin’s Radio and again in 2009 as a part of Frost*.
In late 2009, Dec left Darwin’s Radio to focus on a solo career. The result is the 2010 debut release, Destroy All Monsters which has Dec doing almost all the instruments except the bass guitar, which is supplied by Nathan King (Frost*) and Steve Kightley, some drum parts on the album supplied by Tim Churchman (Darwin’s Radio). Also there’s a keyboard solo & mellotron parts on the song “Promised” which are supplied by Carl Westholm of Carptree and a middle guitar solo on “Small Hours” provided by Hywel Bennett.
From the opening track “The Last Time” (5:12) to the ‘epic’ closing title track, “Destroy All Monsters” (7:10), the listener is in for a wild ride through progressive rock, pop and electronica music. There is not a bad track on the album. I’m quite fond of all the songs, it’s also hard to pin-point any highlights because the whole album is a highlight.
I feel that Destroy All Monsters should be listened to several times to fully appreciate the beauty that Dec Burke has created. Even though I received the album long after it‘s release date, I just had to include it as part of my top 50 favorite releases of 2010. I can’t recommend this album enough. I keep replaying it over and over and it never gets old. That’s a the sign of a perfect album in my opinion. I can’t wait to see where Dec goes from here.
Reviewed by Ron Fuchs on February 21st, 2011
