Burning the Process by Pressure 4-5

Burning the Process, the debut from Santa Barbara's Pressure 4-5, came out on DreamWorks on October 2, 2001, 11 tracks deep. Three of them, "These Hands", "Beat the World" and "Even Worse", had already turned up on an earlier three-song sampler and were cut again for the album.

Record racks filed them next to nu metal, and the band pushed back hard. They saw themselves as a heavy rock band with thoughtful, inward-looking lyrics and no use for rap-rock catchphrases, and you can hear it: the riffs hit hard, but the vocals reach for melody and brooding rather than barked slogans. "Beat the World" is the song that made the countdowns. It turned out to be their only major-label album; they toured into the next year and split in 2003 as members drifted off to lives outside music.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.