August Burns Red with Of Mice & Men, The Color Morale, The Overseer
The Orbit Room, Grand Rapids
Sep. 6, 7 p.m.
$20 Advance, $22 Doors
orbitroom.com, (616) 942-1328
The impending sound of August Burns Red's blistering guitars, monumental breakdowns and anti-chorus screams will resound throughout the Orbit Room on Sept. 6.
Over the band's eight-year existence, the Pennsylvanians have garnered notable success in the metalcore field. Yet, as guitarist Brent Rambler indicated, they openly detest the genre's notoriety due to formulaic composition.
"Metalcore really became stale as a genre when pretty much every band started to just do verse-chorus-verse-chorus," Rambler said. "We'll never be that kind of band. That's not what we like as far as metal goes.
"We want to love the music we make. In order for us to keep doing that, it needs to change as our musical tastes change, and I think that's why we keep pushing the envelope a little bit with each release."
While the band's earliest full-length, Thrill Seeker, lays the foundation for its metalcore roots, it does not contain the same chemistry as demonstrated in the amusingly digressive salsa insert of "Internal Cannon" on the latest album, Leveler. Between the two, the group has purposely diverted from the path of generic metalcore, going as far as recreating Christmas songs such as "O Come, O Come Emmanuel," "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" and "Little Drummer Boy."
The aforementioned songs will be included on the band's upcoming dedicated Christmas full-length, Sleddin' Hill: A Holiday Album, due out Oct. 9, along with several other remakes and custom ABR carols. The album surpasses any previous ABR musical experimentation, boasting a college choir, bells, violin and banjo.
"Everyone knows that we're going to make another full-length record and it's going to be a balls-to the-walls, heavy and hard-hitting record. I think doing a Christmas record was fun for us because we got to get creative outside the box as far as music goes."
The album, to be released during a month when people anticipate the chills of Halloween before those of Christmas winter, will not have its place in the recent fall tour -- the release date an act intended to catch Christmas catalogues as much as fans' ears. However, Rambler did promise that songs would be played from ABR's entire span of full-length records, some of which haven't been played in years, to be visually enhanced with an improved light show.
"The Orbit Room is a big venue where we'll be able to do our whole production, so that's awesome that we're coming to Grand Rapids," he said.
