Review by Daniel for Dillinger Escape Plan, The - One of Us Is the Killer (2013)

I can still very vividly remember the first time I experienced the stunning intensity of New Jersey mathcore exponents The Dillinger Escape Plan. It was some time in the mid-2000’s & I was completely immersed in the techno scene after having grown tired of metal & taking a break from it completely around 1998. My brother Ben had come over to my apartment for a visit & he’d come armed with a collection of tracks he’d been wanting to show me in order to highlight the best work the metal scene had to offer at the time. I’m not sure if he was hoping to lure me back to metal or not but I have to admit that I wasn’t terribly open to returning at that stage. I did however have a strong interest in seeing what I was missing &, of all of the material that he showed me that night, one track stood out from the rest fairly comfortably & would stay with me for all of the years that have followed. The psychotic blast of energy that is The Dillinger Escape Plan’s “43% Burnt” completely blew my mind that night with its unbridled ferocity, over-the-top complexity & sheer ambition. It certainly didn’t fall into my musical comfort zone but it did manage to leave me questioning if the metal scene still had some fresh new ideas for me after all. I’d eventually return to metal in 2009 & made a point of familiarizing myself with the Dillinger back catalogue with extreme priority.

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.