“Leveler”, the fourth album from the Lancaster, Pennsylvania-based Christian metalcore quintet AUGUST BURNS RED, sold around 29,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release to land at position No. 11 on The Billboard 200 chart.
AUGUST BURNS RED‘s previous CD, “Constellations”, opened with 20,000 units in July 2009 to debut at No. 24.
“Leveler” was released on June 21 via Sollid State Records. The effort was made available in both regular and deluxe editions — a first for the band.
For “Leveler”, AUGUST BURNS RED re-teamed with producer Jason Suecof, the man behind the board on the band’s previous CD, 2009’s “Constellations”, which landed at No. 24 on The Billboard 200 and sold more than 90,000 copies. The result is an album that pushes the band’s sonic boundaries in every direction, yet emerges as an unquestionably heavier album than its predecessor.
“Putting out a fourth record is a little scary because we obviously have our sound figured out at this point, but we don’t want to put out a record that just sounds like a redux of our previous albums,” explains guitarist JB Brubaker. “Our tastes are always evolving as musicians and we’ve been motivated to progress as a band and push ABR in different directions, while maintaining the characteristics that made us the band we are in the first place.”
While AUGUST BURNS RED has never succumbed to the artistic trends in metal album covers, “Leveler” represents an even larger departure than fans have seen on the band’s previous albums. The artwork, created by artist Jordan Crane, brings a striking comic book flair that the band wanted the artwork to encompass.
“Leveler” track listing:
01. Empire
02. Internal Cannon
03. Divisions
04. Cutting the Ties
05. Pangaea
06. Carpe Diem
07. 740 Nights
08. Salt & Light
09. Poor Millionaire
10. 1/16/2011
11. Boys of Fall
12. Leveler
Bonus tracks for deluxe edition:
13. Internal Cannon (acoustic)
14. Pangaea (performed by BELLS)
15. Boys of Fall (performed by Zachary Veilleux)
16. Empire (midi)
