### August Burns Red: Constellations

#### 10/09/09 || Trauma

Picture this scenario: Jason Suecof, producer of such hit awesome bands such as God Forbid and one-time band buddy of Mike Poggione, is working away on the knobs and another one of Pennsylvania’s somehow popular shit bands is working away in the other room with whatever it is they are doing. For added effect, grab a couple bottles of the most expensive cologne you can find at your shopping mall and drench yourself in it.

“Dude, Brent. You so gotta totally hear this.”

“What’s that JB? Flipping play me that heavenly tune already!”

“Jesus is totally going to cry when he hears these melodies come off of my IbanezTM. I think the girls might even really dig it!”

In walks Jake with an ultra-thin American Eagle OutfittersTM button-shirt with the top three buttons opened exposing his intricate tattoo.

“Oh, don’t be foolish! A good Christian girl loves you for your values. And your playing is saintly, with just that hint of hellish badness to help confuse wayward souls.”

“Much like your voice, it really helps pull together our music so much. We’ve certainly convinced much of the mall crowd that we can be faithful and brutal at the same time. Hold on, I gotta TweetTM something.”

Dustin wakes up off the couch and puts on a girls v-neck, then picks up a Red BullTM and TweetsTM someting.

“Dude, bras, Matt is totally ripping it up in there on the kit. I thought I was in another world when I heard those monster beats from my slumber.”

Matt walks out, all sweaty, TweetingTM to his fans on his Vic FirthTM covered cell phone.

End scene.

Ok. This is very hard for me to review. It is labelled as metalcore (yes, it does have all those faggoty chugg-chugg-chugg-chugga-chugg breakdowns), but they decided to sneak in a more melodic touch with real riffs to it. Which is very welcome and certainly made it much easier to get through the music.

In summation:

These guys have skill to make some good melodies, a better than decent growler (you know, he’s got some very good lows if he’d only stick with that, but Christianity might be a hinder), and not bad drumming. But you see, they also have the skill to completely fuck up what they had going when they decide to drop back down into the fucken mallcore chugg chugg chugg chugg chugg chugg chugga chugga chugg chugg shit. Seriously, fuck you guys for ruining something that could have actually been alright. You have moments of good like your melodic sense, and then it goes down the shitter. Many times did I hear what could have made for a really cool riff to expand on all of a sudden stop and it’s either abandoned or changed for the worse, and I don’t think I need to explain further for you, fine readers. For that, August Burns Red, you will never be anything more than mall to the core.

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Solid State Records
- Website: August Burns Red MySpace
- Band
- Jake Luhrs: vocals
- JB Brubaker: guitars
- Brent Rambler: guitars
- Dustin Davidson: bass
- Matt Greiner: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Thirty and seven
- 02. Existence
- 03. Ocean of apathy
- 04. White washed
- 05. Marianas trench
- 06. The escape artist
- 07. Indonesia
- 08. Paradox
- 09. Meridian
- 10. Rationalist
- 11. Meddler
- 12. Crusades