Even with metalcore in its current era of hyper-innovative flux – every band and their dog experimenting with synths, samples and strange new sounds in a race to the genre’s next evolutionary step – there’s still something to be said for good old meat-and-potatoes melodic munch. 17 years in, Pennsylvania bruisers August Burns Red remain some of its highest-quality purveyors. Opening with the buzzsaw whirl of The Narrative, the Lancaster quintet continue dead-ahead on eighth full-length Guardians. An explosion of airtight technicality gouged with deceptively infectious grooves, it picks up where 2017’s excellent Phantom Anthem left off but continues to pull on threads that stretch all the way back on 2005’s Thrill Seeker. From the skull-stomping brutality of Defender through the high d...
