August Burns Red - Phantom Anthem Review

By -

Concise Summary:

WOW. I'm completely blown away by Phantom Anthem. August Burns Red completely outdid themselves on this album. The sheer musical craftsmanship is insane and the amount of style diversity in this album is something you wouldn't normally expect to find, especially for metalcore. The vocals are incredible, the guitar is amazing, the drumming is unbelievably technical, even the bass on has several chances to stand out and shine! I was interested in the way ABR was going with their last album, Found in Far Away Places, and they took what they tried there and really REALLY implemented on Phantom Anthem. It's an absolutely amazing effort. This album will go down in my history books as one of the best metalcore albums ever created. It's not Messengers, arguably one of the most quintessential metalcore albums in history, but it's just as good, if not better, in its own unique way. 


My Rating: 9.5 out of 10

Highlights:

Amazing drummingUnique, interesting lyricsAwesome screamingVery technical guitar riffs and solosA few very impressive bass solos
Lowlights:
A few of the riffs got a bit too choppy and unharmonic for my personal taste. (That's not to say they were bad, because I really respect what they did musically in those parts). 

Favorite Songs:

King of Sorrow Hero of the Half-Truth Float Dangerous Carbon Copy
More Info:

August Burns Red Official Website

August Burns Red Facebook

August Burns Red Twitter

August Burns Red Wikipedia

Comments

  1. A.J. SpaudeOctober 31, 2017 at 11:54 AM

    Follow me on Twitter @BPMetalReviews to stay updated on the latest reviews!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Unguided - And The Battle Royale Review

By -
Image
Concise Summary: The Unguided is a band that has apparently been around for quite awhile, but I just found them today. After listening to their newest album, And The Battle Royale, I think I'll be listening to more of their music in the future! And The Battle Royale has fairly synth-driven songs with both clean and screamed vocals. The style is almost like synth-driven metalcore, which I think is a pretty cool and unique concept. That being said, And The Battle Royale doesn't display much style diversity - most of the album is pretty much only has that metalcore-ish sound. As a result, a lot of the songs sound very similar, making the album seem kind of "flat", if you will; the songs seem to run together. Overall, this is a very good album, and I really enjoyed listening to it, but the style diversity is lacking.  My Rating: 8.5 out of 10 Highlights: Excellent vocals Interesting musical style Enjoyable overall sound and feel to the album
Read more

Red - Gone Review

By -
Image
Concise Summary: In my opinion, Release the Panic back in 2013 was a style transition album into Of Beauty and Rage, which, in turn, set the tone for Gone. However, I think that Of Beauty and Rage and Gone sound way too similar. Both albums seem to have apocalyptic themes to the lyrics, there's a lot of synth, the drums are electronic, there are really no technical guitar parts, and the singing is generally quiet with a few screams thrown in for some variety. Granted, it's a pretty unique sound, but having Of Beauty and Rage and Gone sound so similar, especially with regard to lyrical themes, is just... boring. In my opinion, each album should tell a different story, but Gone just seems to tell the same story that Of Beauty and Rage told: a vague, apocalyptic, dark, and fairly hopeless story. Because the story is so vague, it's not even like a two-part continuation. Apart from the story (or lack thereof), Gone is probably a better album than Of Beauty and Rage.
Read more

Hulkoff - KVEN Review

By -
Image
Concise Summary: When I started listening to KVEN, I thought, "Wow, this really sounds like Raubtier." After some quick research, I was somewhat unsurprised to find out that Hulkoff is Pär Hulkoff's solo project, and that he is the lead singer and guitarist for Raubtier. With that perspective, I suppose it's not surprising that Hulkoff sounds almost identical to Raubtier, but I still would have liked to see something different from Hulkoff. As is, KVEN could easily pass as a Raubtier album; there's not much to make it unique. The guitars are extremely heavy and the singing is very guttural, just like Raubtier. The songwriting is based on chugging guitars more than intricate riffs and there isn't much for variety in instruments, again, just like Raubtier. Because Hulkoff is basically one-man Raubtier, it has the same issues as Raubtier. The mixing on KVEN is oppressively balanced toward the low end, the guitar sounds muddy, and half of the songs sound li
Read more