AUGUST BURNS RED: STILL A THING

I continue to be baffled by the ongoing popularity of August Burns Red. The band has a new album called Leveler coming out later this summer, and I keep getting press releases about new songs, and I keep trying to listen to those new songs, and I keep having to turn those news songs off after a little bit because if I wanted to be that annoyed I’d just just give myself a paper cut.

And I actually kind of enjoyed roughly the first twenty-five seconds of the latest of these new songs, “Poor Millionaire” (streaming below). That’s a little bit because I dig the riff and a lotta bit because this section is dominated by drummer Matt Greiner, who is a beast, and pretty much the only good thing about ABR. But then the tune devolves into the same generic metalcore schlock this band always churns out, and my interest goes the way of Crazy Town’s career.

Am I missing something? Is there some aspect of this music that’s totally fucking great? Please, someone who likes this band, explain it to me. I just can’t for the life of me figure out what’s appealing about this drek.

Leveler comes out June 21 on Solid State. It was produced by Jason Suecof, so at least it will sound great.

-AR