Burst Into Flame

One of the flag-bearers of the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal, Haunt — aka Trevor Church — throws all the way back to the NWOBHM in a one-man quest to birth as many awesome riffs into the world as possible. This first full-length finds the Fresno native couching a deeply personal narrative about loss in songs with external occult trappings like “Crystal Ball,” “My Mirage,” and “Frozen in Time.” His singing is still rough here, but it works with the raw emotional material and the scrappiness of the style he’s both paying tribute to and perfecting.