Album Review: August Burns Red - Guardians

August Burns Red are a great band. They’ve been around a long time, they slay in a live setting and they give their fans what they want, having released no fewer than nine albums in the last decade and a half. In fact, this latter point may be part of the issue with Guardians. 

Punching out so many albums in such a relatively brief period of time can sometimes lead to a ‘quantity over quality’ situation. This album is acceptably written and produced, and there’s little glaringly bad about it. It’s that it has kind of a ‘just another metalcore release’ feel to it, and sounds like it has been cranked out purely for the sake of having another album out there in the marketplace. 

Maybe it’s the essence of this type of music, aggressive metalcore bordering on hardcore, but there is precious little in the way of dynamics going on here; little light and shade, not much happening in terms of different moods and colours. Especially in the vocal department. It is an aggressive musical bulldozer, assaulting the ears of the listener, virtually from end to end. And, as the laws of musical dynamics govern, the almost perpetual aggression becomes kinda meaningless after a while. It takes until track nine, Extinct By Instinct, for there to be any true let-off on the brutality accelerator.

Of course, this is exactly what many fans of this band and this style of music enjoy, so if that’s you, grab this album and go for your life. You will find much to enjoy here.