[youtube]http://youtu.be/1nsVVzJDtGQ[/youtube]

Last week around this time, there was quite a bit of internet hatred towards Upon a Burning Body, who instead of releasing a song before jumping on to the Mayhem Fest like most bands did, were involved in a publicity stunt suggesting their singer, Danny Leal, was missing. Actually, they did release a single, then another one, before Mayhem started last Saturday (5). What they haven’t released yet, however, is a statement about his “disappearance.” They just kind of popped up on tour and haven’t addressed it. In an interview with The Metalluminati, Leal and the Ruben Alvarez were asked about what the metal community was talking about last week? “What publicity stunt,” Leal said. “People keep asking me that. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Um, no guys. If you were to state, preferably via a publicist, that it was a dumb  stunt that you didn’t think through, and that you were amazed by the outpouring of support and sorry you misled anyone for a second, that’d go a hell of a lot farther than pretending it didn’t happen. There’s a lot of people that are pissed about this, and not just fans of the band. Plenty of people that didn’t know anything about Upon a Burning Body before now hate them for this, and hoping it will blow over without directly addressing it is the wrong way to go about things. It’s a shame, because the new material sounds like it could bring them to a new audience.