April 2021 Feature Release – The Revolution Edition

So just like that we find that a new month is upon us which of course means that we’ll be nominating a brand new monthly feature release for each clan. This essentially means that we’re asking you to rate, review & discuss our chosen features for no other reason than because we enjoy the process & banter. We’re really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on our chosen releases so don’t be shy.

This month’s feature release for The Revolution has been nominated by myself. It's 2013's classic fifth album from New Jersey mathcore legends The Dillinger Escape Plan entitled "One Of Us Is The Killer".

https://metal.academy/releases/1751

I did my review, here's its summary:

Ever since their 1997 formation, The Dillinger Escape Plan have combined death metal, hardcore, and art-prog to spawn the genre mathcore, or more specifically grind-tech-math-metalcore. They've released 5 awesome albums at that point, and one of them is another killer album, One of Us is the Killer! On their fifth album, TDEP have a lot of extreme in their hands, but some of it is lost to construct songs with more melodic motifs. Their song-craft journey that they can still poly-rhythmic thrash metalcore choruses more barbaric than Conan the Barbarian while making more poppy numbers that would allow them to guest appear in Conan the talk show. It may sound selling out, but they can still be as extreme as they want to be. Just listen to these intense songs that range from melodic to sludgy to chaotic, and you'll hear what I mean. Unlike other hardcore metalheads who can cause abuse to the innocent with their music and lyrics, TDEP knows who or mostly what they can take their abuse out on. TDEP are no longer a college hardcore band, they have evolved into functioning adults who have unleashed their precision with no denial of fun chaos. They released an album that has a little more slow melody balanced with the usual contorted rage. You'll definitely be headbanging at some extreme choruses like metalheads always do....

4.5/5

In general, I’ve enjoyed everything The Dillinger Escape Plan have put out without ever really feeling that I could fully relate to their sound enough to claim any individual release as a genuine classic for me personally. I’m not entirely sure why that’s the case as I’ve managed to overcome that obstacle with several other mathcore exponents but with Dillinger I inevitably find myself to be very impressed but can never seem to find a higher rating than 4/5 & that’s still the case with 2013’s classic fifth album “One Of Us Is The Killer”. It’s a different record to anything they’d produced previously without ever seeming to alienate the band’s existing fanbase. The technical complexity factor is as spasmatic as ever with the band experimenting with some incredibly off-beat & mind-bending rhythms but there’s somehow a greater level of accessibility at the same time. The incorporation of some strong melodic hooks on songs like the title track & “Nothing’s Funny” will likely see the well-informed listener reaching for comparisons with alternative metal legends Faith No More, particularly the vocal performance of Greg Puciato who seems to have been heavily influenced by the off-the-wall yet incredibly capable vocal stylings of Mike Patton. He's an enormous talent really. I can't possibly imagine how shredded his vocal chords must be after recording an album like this one as he truly screams his fucking lungs out across a large part of the run time but he also proves himself to have a great understanding of musicality & melody when he chooses to explore it.

If you really look at Dillinger’s delivery closely here you’ll find that the band’s sound is built on hardcore more than it is on metal. There’s an uncompromising urgency & aggression about everything they do that keeps the listener on the edge of their seat at all times. The incredible intricacy in their rhythms is both their strength & their enemy in my opinion as not only does it ensure that I’m always interested & engaged but it also sees me often struggling to find a groove that sees me banging my head like I want to do when listening to good metal. In a way I think this sees a lot of Dillinger’s material simply washing over me in a wave of vitriolic electricity without seeing as much of it sticking as I’d like & this is never made more clearly apparent than when they finally get the balance just right. The final two tracks on “One Of Us Is The Killer” (album highlight “Crossburner” & “The Threat Posed By Nuclear Weapons”) are absolutely killer & fall very much into this category. To be honest, I think the key reason I feel that way is because they have simpler, heavier metal riffs interspersed between the chaos & this gives this old metalhead a little more meat on the bones of Dillinger’s spasmatic hardcore sound. It’s strange that they left those two tracks till right at the end but this isn’t to say that there’s anything like a weak song or even a half-decent filler track amongst this lot. It’s all high quality stuff but it’s only the final climax that sees me fully letting go & succumbing to The Dillinger Escape Plan’s incredibly detailed plan of escape.

Overall, I think “One Of Us Is The Killer” is another very strong DEP record. It’s pretty incredible that they managed to maintain their screaming intensity & ridiculous technicality whilst simultaneously infusing their sound with an additional layer of accessibility but it’s paid off for them big-time here. Is it their best release? Perhaps… but it’s hard to compare their records as they’re all so similar in terms of quality. If pushed though, I’d suggest that I’d take this album over a record like “Irony Is A Dead Scene” which seems to be extremely highly regarded these days. Dillinger represented a breath of fresh air for a scene over-flowing with followers & I’m not sure that we’ve found anyone to fill that gap since their unfortunate departure. I’ll always have the fondest memories of experiencing this material in a live environment as there simply isn’t anything to compare to the violence & excitement of a Dillinger live show.

For fans of The Callous Daoboys, Botch & Rolo Tomassi.

4/5

I have cross referenced Dillinger Escape Plan many times in mathcore adjacent album reviews over the last year, most notably in my two Converge reviews for Jane Doe and All We Love We Leave Behind. Both bands played into two different branches of mathcore around the turn of the century and they both turned out to be equally influential to the genre, even if Converge became the more critically adored. I have always stood by the DEP was the better of the two for their songwriting that was equal parts frenetic energy and aggression, as well as well controlled and thought out melodies and hooks.

Now this album, One of Us is the Killer, can be viewed as one of the heaviest albums in the groups discography. The hectic songwriting, complete with very complex time signatures and unison riffage, is truly a marvel to behold. The way in which this group is able to make these sound good instead of as a technical wank break is commendable for sure. But what makes this album stand out is how it fits in remarkably well with tracks like "Hero of the Soviet Union", "Paranoia Shields" and "Crossburner". That is, how these sections are complimented by their more melodic influenced hardcore sections.

Now this album is remarkably loud and one of the poor examples of an album that fell victim to the loudness war. Quite a shame for a handful of reasons, but the main reason is the guitar riffing being so incredibly close to the front of the mix. Despite having some decent hooks at times, this is still math rock at its core, so leads are sparse, and I don't need to hear the chugging breakdown riffs at the same volume/intensity as I do during the melodic choruses. What's worse is how both the kick drum in the percussion, as well as Greg Puciato's vocals are blasted as compensation! It really is muddy and it hurts the album as a whole.

To be honest, I was hoping that the first DEP album to be featured would be Miss Machine or their fantastic swansong Dissociation from 2016, but those will have to wait for another day. As it is, One of Us is the Killer is a fantastic display of how one can make hook driven hardcore music without falling into already oversaturated pool that is melodic hardcore. But the production holds this album back from higher marks. I really enjoy how this sound has been taken and refined in recent years by a group such as Rolo Tomassi, and they owe a lot of that success to this album

7/10