Review from tm3am.com of Cornerstone Festival performance and The Loudest Sound in my Heart cd.

The Violet Burning always puts on a great show. Michael Pritzl is a born performer, and his emotional songs and delivery just draw you in. He was battling a two-day illness at the time of his Friday night show, but he gave everything he had anyway, and made a bunch of new fans in the process. His new Violet Burning lineup – bassist Daryl Dawson, guitarist Doug Heckman and drummer Jason Lord Mize, all of whom look very similar – manages to capture the fullness of TVB albums brilliantly. The style is straightforward, dramatic and openhearted, so you need that skyward-reaching sound, and this band delivers it.

Pritzl himself is just incredible to watch, whether he’s slashing his way through glam-rock like “Berlin Kitty” or soaring on the beautiful waves of “Slowa.” He puts everything out there, and undoubtedly a show like the one he put on Friday night leaves him drained, but he still spent 45 minutes afterwards chatting with fans. Both the concert and the new live album, The Loudest Sound in My Heart, draw heavily from one of his best (and most neglected) records, Demonstrates Plastic and Elastic, and the concert ended with “Gorgeous,” which was.

The Loudest Sound in my Heart
Pritzl’s most recent releases display many different sides to what he does, from the computer-rock of The Gravity Show, to the slicker radio pop of This Is the Moment, to the haunting acoustics of Hollow Songs. And now the live album brings another side, more of a classic old-school TVB dramatic edge. Even the newer songs, layered and smoothed out on record, took flight on stage, and they sound great on the live album. (The Gravity Show’s “Aching” steps forward here as one of Pritzl’s best songs.) It sounds like an emotional rebirth for one of this little corner of the music world’s best performers.

~Andre Salles
www.tm3am.com