May 17th, 2013 
Adrian Garza 
Artist: August Burns Red
Track: “Fault Line”
Album: Rescue & Restore
Over the past ten years we have watched the western Pennsylvania metalcore heroes in August Burns Red slowly grow from being newcomers in what was then seen as an emerging scene to becoming modern day legends in their own right. Earlier this week the band premiered “Fault Line,” the lead single from their fifth full length studio album (excluding last year’s Christmas album), Rescue & Restore, which is scheduled for release through Solid State Records in June. Sure ABR have a reputation for putting their unique spin on the genre, but when it all boils down to it, it’s well said that one of their most constant game plans for recording has always been to push out the most complex and technical music that holds an identity of its own. As far as “Fault Line” goes, this is definitely still the case.
Moving onto the actual song itself, every aspect of ABR that fans and critics alike have come to know has simply been magnified and super-sized with a “more of everything” mentality. Things get a little bit more adventurous one here, with much more indication that the tracks to come on Rescue & Restore. On a passive listen, people might write off the first 20 seconds of this as just another song by the band, but then it hits that the vocals of Jake Luhrs have been massively beefed up in the mix, along with the melodic side of the band using instruments set one half step lower to drop-b tuning.
There’s absolutely nothing new with the idea of making breakdowns dramatically sprout from the bridge of a song, but when this song reaches it’ jarring halfway point, you know something huge is about to happen. Luhrs spouts out the lines: “if I could do more I promise you I would, but this is your time now,” twice before going into his signature low growl that launches the track into the beginning of it’s end. At the song’s closing, Luhrs and drummer Matt Greiner finish song in a way that strikes an emotive cord similar to the way the band did with one of their most popular tracks, “Meddler.”
If things are as diverse and as different as some have hyped the album to be, I feel we haven’t seen that fully come to fruition with “Fault Line.” My main criticism is that there’s a huge amount of familiarity in the single that could’ve been scaled back to show off just how far the band’s progressed since 2011’s Leveler, but aside from all of that, this still does great on its own in preparing listeners for what’s to come with Rescue & Restore.
Review written by: Adrian Garza (Twitter)
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