August Burns Red - Sleddin' Hill

Christmas music and heavy metal have never really gone together. And why would they? Tough, mean, brutal heavy metal with cheery, happy, fun Christmas music? It just doesn't make sense. But when August Burns Red released the brilliant version of Carol of the Bells a couple years back, followed by equally as awesome O Come O Come Emmanuel the following year, fans wanted a full-length Christmas record. And finally, the band has given us what we asked for!

Sleddin' Hill is fun! It's a whole lot of fun! Flurries, an original kicks off the record and it's a fun, rifftastic song! As a whole, Sleddin' Hill is pretty rifftastic. At times you'd imagine this is what Between The Buried and Me or Animals As Leaders would do and I love that! The band rips through one instrumental cover of classic Christmas song after another. They break from the pure instrumental sound to give a fun, almost punk version of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Of course, I still think the best tracks are O Come O Come Emmanuel and Carol of the Bells but the whole album is great!

Sleddin' Hill is lots and lots of fun and just further proof of how extremely talented the ABR boys are! A great holiday record! I think even grinches who hate christmas music will enjoy this one!