Review Summary: What people wanted to hear, whether you like it or not
Made up of Al Pacino fans and self-proclaimed Attack Attack! Haters, Upon A Burning Body has emerged from the new wave of deathcore slabs, yet with a redefining edge.
Sure you may be quick to judge a book by the cover, or in this case a band by its name, with a title of “Upon A Burning Body” as a washed up super dropped 9-stringed guitar grind of bearded Religion haters. A quick search on Google images will hail these kids are a bunch of skinny pseudo Mexican Texans with a gimmick. You may accuse them of injecting a newly scene-kid-favored trend into a well established genre, but hey, it still gets you to jump in your head a little bit.
If I was in the position to give some constructive criticism, I would say don’t start a song in an unattractive grind of incomprehensible clashing guitar riffs and patchy filler vocals. But that’s just me. That’s where we go back to the “judge a book by its cover concept.” When first coming into UABB’s world, if you can make it through the first 45 seconds of any given song, then you’ll be pleasantly surprised and satisfied with your effort to make it to each song’s, how do you say it? Climax? Yes, good word. UABB pretty much nailed keeping their listeners on. Most deathcore bands today have very straightforward fist pounding songs all the way through. But these guys make sure to include that one part that you remember the song for.
They have many tricks up their sleeves. One being the Epic Pause. They trick you with an annoying threshy snare beatdown that abruptly stops, followed by a half screamed smartass lyric by the vocalist, then another teeth gritting agonizing two seconds of music absent awkwardness, then smashed by a full band door kick-in on your cheap ipod headphones. This is my favorite part of the song “Carlito’s Way.” If you want to hear this, skim to 1:08 in on the song, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
Another even MORE kickass trick is the chant. Very prevalent at the end of the song “Intermission.” Where they reverb every noise, and blast 7 or 8 layers of vocals chanting a very iconic line with limited instrumental interference.
Upon A Burning Body throws in some humor in their music. With some very questionable methods, they steal very iconic lyrics from well known bands and throw a chant into a song. “It’s A Long Way To The Top If You Want To Rock ‘N’ Roll?” Sound familiar? Yeah, thought so. “Tonight We’re Gonna Party Like It’s 1999?” Wouldn’t take some religion hating beard metal fatties as Prince lovers, there’s proof without the google right there that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. Also being ripped off themselves by Attack Attack!, you can find the youtube footage of Upon A Burning Body’s feelings towards AA! Stealing their Welcome To The Family theme. Go ahead, youtube it.
Needless to say, Upon A Burning Body’s music is definitely engineered to tear *** up live. Giving many opportunities to get noticed by the band members by knowing their lyrics, plenty of bouncing moments (in one instance after an epic pause, the vocalist actually commands you to BOUNCE) so all your scene kid needs are met, I give this album a 4.5, or even a perfect 5, out of 5. But that's my honest opinion. I am a Deathcore Bro. There are gonna be varied opinions on this reletively new genre, a lot of bands hate being labeled so. But music is pointless without opinions.
