August Burns Red - Messengers
70%
August Burns Red from Lancaster Pennsylvania are often labelled Christian metalcore. Which is, according to their guitarists, only important for the band itself because they’re not here to ram it down our throats. After a little search on the evil world of internet I discovered that this album was released in the summer of 2007. So to be honest I find it a bit strange to send such an album to a metal magazine. On the other hand, they’re on tour right now so it’s probably just a way to gain some media attention. Considering we didn’t review it before I’d say the hell with the release date and let’s review this album.
Messengers is already the second effort from August Burns Red and is according to the biography truly an album of the entire band because every one wrote along with everything. To be honest I don’t know the predecessor of Messengers so the question is did I miss anything? Well I guess not. A mighty riff in ´The Truth Of A Liar´ did rise some expectations even though the rest of the song turned out to be a rather standard metalcore song. Continuing with ´Up Against The Ropes´, ´Back Burner´ and ´The Blinding Light´, the band made me realise I didn’t have to expect anything special at all here.
The production is quite good, but considering Tue Madsen was the person behind the buttons that’s not an exception. He gave August Burns Red a nice open sound which is a great boost when you're listening to the music. Still, it’s not like there’s a wall of sound coming out of the speakers when you play the album.
In the end I’m rather convinced that August Burns Red created a nice album. Like I said before it’s nothing special although I find the album rather entertaining. It has its moments, its breakdowns and all the usual stuff that you find on most metalcore albums. Oh and as for the Christianity of this album, I didn’t get a halo above my head when I listened to it last week so I guess they didn’t ram it down my throat.
