Musical, Lyrical Familiarity, Accessibility Makes August Burns Red’s Latest LPA Success

By: Philip Sayblack

August Burns Red officially returned last month when it released its latest album, Season of Surrender.  The band’s 11th album, it came more than three years after the release of its then latest album, Death Below.  The band’s first record for its one time label home Fearless Records since the release of Guardians in 2020 (that record’s follow-up, Death Below, was released through Sharp Tone), it is a powerhouse presentation, both musically and lyrically.  The record’s production puts the finishing touch to its presentation, ensuring a solid general effect that works with the overall content to the end of making Season of Surrender another welcome addition to this year’s field of new hard rock and metal albums.


Season of Surrender, the latest full-length studio recording from August Burns Red, is a solid new outing for the veteran metalcore outfit.  Its success is proven in large part through the musical arrangements featured throughout its 44-minute run time.  From the record’s opener, ‘Legions,’ to its finale, ‘Forged By Failure,’ the record’s musical body is a nearly nonstop slab of familiar metalcore leanings with some surprises.  The surprises come in the form of the occasional death metal breakdowns a la Whitechapel.  Those breakdowns come in the end of ‘Legions’ and in the final minutes of ‘Whispers Like Splinters.’  The rest of the way throughout the album, audiences get plenty of familiar touches from the band while also blending the best elements of Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, and All That Remains.  The end result is a work that every metalcore purist will welcome in their music library.


Building on the appeal of the album’s musical body is the lyrical content that accompanies that musical material.  The lyrical content in question deals very heavily with the matter of mental health.  It is not the only topic tackled here, though.  The band also takes on the matter of self-identity (another familiar topic for hard rock and metal) and even the dangers of a narcissistic individual (wonder where the inspiration for that came from?) in the album’s opener.  There is also the matter of the mental and physical impact of fighting disease in ‘Den of Thieves.’


In regard to the matter of mental health, the band takes on the topic in various ways throughout the album.  According to information made available through research, ‘Behemoth,’ the album’s lead single centers on the matter of facing childhood emotional trauma while ‘Cerebral Malfunction’ handles a related topic, that of a person’s tendency toward self-sabotaging and dealing with one’s self-worth.  Those two topics can and often do interact with one another, so that and the reality that certainly they will resonate with plenty of audiences makes for plenty of importance and resonance.  Self-sabotage could be considered a toxic habit that is very self-destructive.  That very matter of trying to break from such self-destructive and toxic habits is at the center of ‘S.O.S.’, one of the album’s later entries.  Dealing with grief and loss, whether through death or through broken trust is also a mental health matter.  Those are both addressed respectively in ‘New Horizons,’ ‘Forged By Failure’ and ‘Whispers Like Splinters.’  So even in that matter, the band is still tackling the matter of mental health, just in the unique fashion as noted.  Keeping that in mind, this familiar overarching theme of mental health that spans most of the album’s lyrical content is certain to resonate loudly with a wide range of audiences.  That resonance will itself lead to even more appreciation for the record alongside its hard hitting musical body.  The two items together make for more than enough reason to audiences to take in this album.


Putting the final touch to the album is its production.  The production is of note because of the impact that it had on the album’s general effect.  Thanks to the time and attention that went into balancing the vocal and instrumental performances in each song, no one part overpowers the others at any point.  The result is a record that is just as appealing for this aesthetic element as for its content.  The whole therein leaves Season of Surrender a welcome return for August Burns Red that is also another welcome addition to this year’s field of new hard rock and metal albums in its own right.


Season of Surrender, the latest full-length studio recording from August Burns Red, is a strong new offering from the veteran metalcore band.  The nearly 45-minute record will appeal widely among metalcore audiences and the band’s established audiences in part through its musical arrangements.  That is due to the familiarity of its metalcore and even death metal touches.  The lyrical content that accompanies the album’s musical material adds to the appeal with its own familiarity and accessibility.  By and large, the album’s lyrical content touches on the matter of mental health in a handful of avenues while still being easily accessible.  The record’s production puts the finishing touch to the whole, ensuring a positive general effect for the whole.  Each item examined is important in its own way to the whole of the album.  All things considered they make Season of Surrender a solid new offering from August Burns Red that will resonate with plenty of audiences.
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Season of Surrender is available now.  More information on the album is available along with all of August Burns Red’s latest news at:


Website: https://augustburnsred.com


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