I already admitted in a previous post that I am big fan of August Burns Red, but it is ironic that only began listening to them a few months ago. In May 2010 I decided to give August Burns Red another chance after trying to listening to them about three years previous. One of the best decisions I have made in a while. I will admit that it took me a while to get into their album Messengers after living off of Constellations for weeks. Messengers had been such a breakthrough for August Burns Red that I felt it was almost an obligation to like it, but I do find it to be hard to listen to at times. After finally learning all the songs off Messengers I decided to listen to their debut full-length Thrill Seeker. In all honesty, I was not looking forward to it. I was not expecting it to be anything special, just another first for a band that became so much more.
I was proven wrong. I could not believe what I was hearing.
The album resembles a lot of the sound of Constellations, released in 2009. Amazingly, before listening to Thrill Seeker I had never heard anything about it. Sure, I knew it existed, but I have never put it in my priority to listening to it because I never heard anything about it; good or bad. Now I find myself listening to it more often than Constellations and much more than Messengers.
Thrill Seeker was released in 2005, and as I mentioned is August Burns Red's first full-length album from Solid State Records. If you have heard their material off Looks Fragile After All, it is pretty amazing that the band turned out the way it is today (with all do respect of course). Even the jump that was made from their EP to Thrill Seeker is greatly apparent, which could be a quality of production issue. The biggest difference between Thrill Seeker and Constellations, I believe, is how the songs are arranged. Each song has its noticeable riffs, guitar-like-solos, and Matt Greiner's particular drumming. The tracks on the Thrill Seeker follow the odd time signatures that many August Burns Red fans are used to, but sometimes it sounds like there are two songs in one. It is almost as if the guys have learned that you do not need to put so much into a song for it to sound good. That being said, they are not simple in the least with what they write, even today, and it is apparent in this album that the guys knew from the beginning what direction they wanted their band to move towards.
I greatly encourage people to look into this album, which I believe is greatly underrated. Whether you are a fan of the band today or not, if you are a fan of metalcore this is an album you can appreciate. To me, Thrill Seeker is an album that was ahead of its time by about two years and therefore did not gain the recognition it deserved. I also could have just missed its recognition because as I said I only recently began listening to August Burns Red. Either way, this album needs more credibility within the metalcore community.
If there are any albums that you believe are underrated and need to be known about to listeners, leave a comment and I will look into the band and their albums. I would love to hear about albums I may not otherwise give the time of day, so please do not be shy.
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