AS EDEN BURNS THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER

Ryan Schutte sent us an e-mail with the following subject line:

better then black dahlia could ever ever hope to be

There was no text in the e-mail besides a link to the below song, “Ever Again,” by the now-defunct As Eden Burns. Ignoring Mr. Schutte’s grammatical errors, I gave it a listen…

Now, I think this is really, really good. In fact, I think it’s pretty awesome. Awesome enough that I immediately hit up the band’s MySpace page and listened to their entire 2008 album, The Celestial Delusion – because the entire thing seems to be streaming there in perpetuity (which makes sense… if they broke up, might as well have their work out there for all the world to hear at their leisure). And I liked that enough that I immediately downloaded the album from iTunes – it cost me all of eight bucks.

But, in Ryan’s words, “better then black dahlia could ever hope to be?” Well, that’s, uh, ridiculous. Never mind that I love The Black Dahlia Murder; even if The Black Dahlia Murder were a band I wasn’t such a big fan of, it wouldn’t change the fact that As Eden Burns sounds very similar, and that they’re both basically disciples of the same bands. I’d like to imagine a world in which As Eden Burns were still together, and touring with The Black Dahlia Murder; saying you love one and absolutely despise the other makes no sense. Maybe you like Hatebreed but like Terror less; but if you love Hatebreed and hate Terror, well, then you must just think that Jamey Jasta is cuter than Scott Vogel or something, because they have really similar sounds and philosophies.

As Eden Burns were a really good band, The Celestial Delusion is a really good album, and I wish I’d known about it when it came out two years ago. Check it out. But if your stance is that this band was lightyears ahead of TBDM, well, I’m gonna need a stronger argument than just the above song.

-AR