Band:	August Burns Red
Album:	Rescue & Restore
Style:	Technical metalcore
Release date:	June 25, 2013
Guest review by:	flightoficarus

01. Provision
02. Treatment
03. Spirit Breaker
04. Count It All As Lost
05. Sincerity
06. Creative Captivity
07. Fault Line
08. Beauty In Tragedy
09. Animals
10. Echoes
11. The First Step

Writing a review for August Burns Red is a bit of a challenge. It's not so much that their sound is difficult to describe. Rather, the group's extremely consistent output of technically-inclined metalcore lends itself to redundancy from reviewing one album to the next. But while it may not be the band's best album (an accolade I award to Constellations), Rescue And Restore is definitely their most melodic and different.

Tracks like the emotionally engrossing "Count It All As Lost" sport some of the group's most angelic and heartstring-pulling hooks to date. These riffs are less focused on the usual aggressive, Gothenburg inspirations as creating soul-piercing soundscapes complemented by some excellent, rumbling bass lines. "Spirit Breaker" and the gorgeous "Creative Captivity" fuse these almost Brand New-esque hooks with haunting strings and, in the case of the latter, a show-stealing horn solo.

Vocals follow suit in the album's overall moodier trajectory. While you will not hear Luhrs engaging in anything you could truly call singing, he does take more frequent breaks from his typical metalcore squelch. There are some lengthy stretches of inspirational hardcore vocals that lean heavily on groups like Shai Hulud. There is something about his tone that rings very sincere and gets the blood pumping in a completely different way. Likewise, the gang vocals on "Echoes" and "Sincerity" are stirring and ripe for sing-along. Fair warning, songs can take a turn for the sappy at times with some straight-up spoken word portions that read like high school poetry. Even so, these moments were fairly brief and never so cringe-inducing as to ruin my experience.

All of this is not to say that Rescue And Restore is going the way of the buffalo. August Burns Red is still quite capable of bringing the fury with head-bangers like "The First Step," "Animals," and "Treatment." Vocals will dip very near death metal register (OPEN...THE GATES!) while the drums pound out enthralling d-beats. "Animals" also sports an absolutely addictive riff clearly inspired by the Eastern world. These tunes harken back to the speed and musicianship the group has been known for since fan-favorite, Messengers. That having been said, the faster moments are not my favorites on this album.

I, for one, am thankful that this album sports fewer breakdowns than you can count on one hand. For all of their accomplished playing, ABR have never exactly been known for diversity. Albums have been relatively interchangeable. Rescue And Restore represents the group creating something that can be described quite differently without losing their core sound. The fact that even harder-hitting tracks like the aforementioned "Treatment" (skillfully) progress into finger-picked acoustic guitar, string arrangements, and touching solos shows growth and maturity.

With the unpleasant disbanding of As I Lay Dying, the declining songwriting of Killswitch Engage and what I find to be uninteresting sameness of Unearth, it is my personal opinion that August Burns Red may be the last great active metalcore band. Even after a consistently well-played discography in the genre's heyday, they are still quite capable of writing solid songs and exploring new territories. In a sea of painfully pop Miss May Is and Memphis May Fires, August Burns Red proves that the old metalcore blueprint can be expanded without uprooting its foundation.