Being quite skeptical ’bout everything labeled lately “metalcore”, songs such as “Internal Cannon”, “Cutting the Ties”, “Carpe Diem” and “Salt & Light” from the fourth studio album by American band August Burns Red, convinced me to give them another chance. State that they have been inspired and influenced by bands such as Between the Buried and Me, Misery Signals and Hopesfall, their powerful, technical, filled with heavy breakdowns and groovy riffs and not at least some nice, acoustic or slow passages which offering release and an exotic flavor, is quite the essence of what actually metalcore means now days. Merging some almost traditional heavy metal riffings with intense modern metal with roots back to death metal and adding raw, extreme vocals, August Burns Red comes crushing and this combination of melodious themes with blowing brutality, I had to admit, it’s quite efficient and have some charm. Still, when a million plus one bands are begun doing the same kind of thing, using the same schemes and cliches, don’t really matter how intense they doing it, all the excitement is gone and the thing becomes pretty boring. Some Pantera lyrics came back haunting: “be yourself, by yourself…”
Or, probably as they might believe: by God…
Formed in 2003 in Manheim, Pennsylvania and currently consist of JB Brubaker − lead guitar, Brent Rambler − rhythm guitar, Matt Greiner − drums, keyboards, piano, programming, Dustin Davidson − bass guitar, backing vocals and Jake Luhrs − lead vocals declare them-self as “Christians” and released their first full-length album in November 2005.
Their second album, entitled “Messengers”, was released two years later and the album had sold over 108,000 copies as of May 2011 and peaked at number 81 on the Billboard 200.
August Burns Red released their third full-length album, “Constellations”, on July 14, 2009 and this time, during the week of August 1, 2009, the album charted at spot 24 on the Billboard 200 and in 2010 it was nominated for the Dove Award for “Best Rock Album”.
“Leveler” was released on June 21, 2011. The deluxe version contains four extra songs, including an acoustic version of the song “Internal Cannon”.
Against my pathological revolt against any religious statements and ramming it down on people’s throats any kind of religious bullshit – and generally speaking any sort of ideologies – August Burns Red – musically – are quite interesting and “Leveler” is an absolute correct metalcore album, probably the best performance of them up to date. Still, God doesn’t belong to the rock/metal scene just like “God doesn’t belong to the yankee dollar”…
Poor Millionaire by Solid State Records
Track listing
01. “Empire”
02. “Internal Cannon”
03. “Divisions”
04. “Cutting the Ties”
05. “Pangaea”
06. “Carpe Diem”
07. “40 Nights”
08. “Salt & Light”
09. “Poor Millionaire”
10. “1/16/2011”
11. “Boys of Fall”
12. “Leveler”
Deluxe Edition Bonus Tracks
13. “Internal Cannon” (Acoustic)
14. “Pangaea” (performed by Bells)
15. “Boys of Fall” (performed by Zachary Veilleux)
16. “Empire”
August Burns Red – Official Site
August Burns Red @ MySpace
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urPoGQeJzcw&w=500&h=305]
