Every Time I Die - The Big Dirty

Review in Retrospect

Wordier than one of Shakespeare’s wet dreams, The Big Dirty burst into reality back in the recesses of 2007 rapidly slamming the ‘metalcore’ quintet, Every Time I Die, into the limelight, reaching number 41 in the US Billboard 200 Chart.  The charm of ETID relies upon the psychotic quality of the penny-a-letter insanity of Keith Buckley’s vocals and heavy guitar grooves, as well as the bands insistence upon cutting their teeth on rigorous touring cycles that established their infamy as one of the most electric live performances around.

The Big Dirty built upon these unique traits, securing ETID’s distinctive sound and style as well as harnessing the awesome explosisvity that make them such a potent live spectacle. It is not an understatement to say that the lyrics bleed insanity; at some points the tongue is so far in the cheek that it’s actually licking someone else’s ear lobe. What’s more, this album was so fucking refreshing. Yes, it sounds like a man driven to distraction, wanking and laughing in the corner, but it never grows tiring, as you might expect. The clean vocals fit so well in front of heavy and sharp musicianship; screaming fills and unnecessary grunts are absent. And yes, that is a very good thing. The lyrics are quick and smart with Keith Buckley brandishing his razor-sharp tongue like a sabre. When you’re told in the song, We’rewolf, that ‘you only live when you’re ready to die’, you don’t feel that satire is being exhausted in these constant vacuous observations, you actually feel yourself making a mental note to get out more.

What is more, the guitars rip from riff to jagged riff, the drums and bass (although there was no permanent bass-player in the band at the time) are solid and diverse, and there are notable guest appearances. The inclusion of Dallas Green from Canadian rockers, Alexisonfire, in the song InRIhab sounds incredible. Although the song is not as sparky as some of the others on the album, it does not lose its potency by any stretch of the imagination: ‘I tied the devil to the tracks…can you hear the train coming?’ This song also provides some of the best drum fills around.

So get your dirty mitts on this album; it doesn’t fuck around. It just delivers and delivers until you’re exhausted, both emotionally and physically. If you aren’t prepared for an intense experience then leave this alone; I’m sure for all you lovers of milder musicianship Barry White will bring out something smooth and relaxing soon. Oh shit…

Nevermind.

Always Looking In,

The Outsider

After the fallout

I think I’d like to see this place once the bombs have fallen

Sallow husks etched into the backdrop

And a glorious infection of dust oversweeping man’s inability

To wander as free and as happy as before

An emphysema that grabbed hold of the earth’s mild milk

And soured it until dark spots appeared

As dark as dried blood and as fixed upon emptiness

As the man who had watched the aftermath of this beautiful end

A line drawn between here and nowhere had to pass through eternity

And an eternity which cannot be grasped must be destroyed

For me there is a time ahead, of unknown quantity

That no longer calls like it used to

Instead it groans and screams and murmurs that I should crawl back into the bunker

And pray that more bombs will fall and the infection will quicken

As for me this space holds my key

To watching as hopelessly as I did before

As the remaining world sits in the dust and weeps…

Bring Me The Horizon 'There Is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It There is a Heaven Let's Keep It a Secret'

The expectation that manifested itself in writing a review of Avenged Sevenfold’s Nightmare (which I should be reviewing in this segment here) proved itself too great for me; the context of the album’s production, the tragic passing of Jimmy ‘The Rev’ Sullivan, ensures that the album weeps poignancy and depth that has previously remained undiscovered in A7X’s former efforts. Consequently I spent the summer listening to this album over and over without any loss of its intensity; Nightmare is unforgiving in that it is a constant reminder of the heartbreak surrounding the sudden death of the band’s drummer. It may seem disjointed at points but that, more than anything, stands as a testament to the band’s stoic determination to complete an album that remains a fitting epitaph to their close friend. In short, buy it, steal it, borrow it, order it off grandma’s Amazon account while she’s doped up on Percocet…whatever. Just obtain it because if it resonates with you as much as it did with me, then it’s certainly worth a listen.

So instead this post is dedicated to Bring Me The Horizon and their new release There is a Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It There is a Heaven Let’s Keep It a Secret. Get past the retardedly long album title and you’ll find a record that runs a lot deeper in terms of musicianship than the ejaculate-flinging sceptics would want to acknowledge; the reason I say this is because, unless you’ve been holed up in the Hitler’s secret bunker in Berlin with a horny Eva Braun trying to hump your skeletal brains out for the last sixty-odd years, you should know that BMTH attracts irrational hatred like Liverpudlians attract irrationally large women.

However forgetting their previous albums or any preconceptions you may have about them, this is a dark record that throttles and chokes. I don’t care if they look like McFly who happened to find the face-paint section at the Early Learning Centre and decided to go to town on each other, BMTH have made so much more than just a heavy record. Album opener Crucify Me, for example, after a brief clean intro suddenly pounds into the crash of the verse and the distinctive and relentless lyrics of Oli Sykes, breaking down to intermittently throw in some female vocals produced like a Prodigy track. It feels new and weird to start with and in some ways the album makes me hate myself; I found myself actually liking the keyboard supplemented riffs and the fucking string orchestra sections. It’s a crazily intense record as well; at the end of the ground splitting Anthem, an indiscernible female says ‘I feel like my heart has been touched by Christ’ before the new single, It Never Ends, smashes into you like a freight-train, splintering bone-fragments and destroying any conception of sensibility that might have existed prior to you listening to this album.

There is a Hell… is also so much more than just a masturbatory aid for headbangers. Periods of respite are offered in what do feel like genuine attempts at tenderness, and the addition of female vocals, offered by the musician ‘Lights’, work as an incredible compliment to the devastation that remains throughout the rest of the album; Don’t Go is notably melancholic and filled to the brim with lost love and unrequited passion.

Bring Me The Horizon deserve to stand as victors over many a critic in 2010 for the creation of this record; it is intense and exciting and most of all, it is different. Songs of note include Crucify Me, It Never Ends and Blacklist, yet, in truth, there is very little to find that disappoints here. Maintain any negative preconceptions about the band and you will deprive yourself of one of the best albums of the year. Ignore me at your peril.

Always looking in,

The Outsider

Rating: 9.1/10

Stone Sour 'Audio Secrecy'

Stone Sour is forever condemned to be Corey Taylor’s ‘Other Band.’ Plunged into the shadow of Slipknot, they have often been spurned by the metal world because they lack the intensity, and, dare I say it, the unique brutality of their Des Moines counterparts. Yet it is certainly untrue to say that whilst Slipknot tie the noose and kick away the stool, Stone Sour only have the balls to hastily scrawl a suicide note before breaking down and heading back to mummy’s arms. This can be evidenced by their previous offerings; their self-titled debut gave us such crushing tunes as Get Inside and the disaffected angular monstrosity of Monolith. Even the frustrating heartbreak of Bother is a lot heavier than so much of the shit that hides beneath the guise of ‘metal’ these days. Come What(Ever) May also provided its own fair supply of songs that made you want to reach past your ear drums and grab at your cerebral cortex until you bled from your corneas. In a good way.

However, I do not need Stone Sour to squeeze as many neck-snapping riffs into a song as possible; the whole package provided by Corey Taylor and the gang’s new offering, Audio Secrecy, demonstrates that they are never going to be as heavy as Slipknot. And, after hearing this album, that’s okay. In fact it’s really fucking okay. It makes the comparison between the two bands seem increasingly unnecessary.

Songs such as Digital [Did You Tell] and the new single Say You’ll Haunt Me strike precisely the right balance between the savage chug of the verse and Corey’s soaring vocals in the chorus. The album also offers a few songs that will rapidly become pit-favourites, as well as the sort of ‘ballads’ that could have found their place as part of a mainstream offering; however, it is an eternal relief that they are here. In particular the album closer, Threadbare, devastatingly invokes the desolation of man pulling apart at the seams; the acoustic intro leads into a jagged breakdown riff and guitar solo that satisfies in so many ways. If this is truly the sound of Stone Sour now, then I want as much of it as possible constantly fucked into my ears.

If this album is to be criticised then it would be that Audio Secrecy offers little that is new. Stone Sour have created an aura of familiarity around themselves, and this is no bad thing. In the public eye, it seems you’re fucked if you don’t change but you’re often fucked if you do. There is no fear that Corey and co. are resting on their laurels though; they offer songs that inspire and break and hurt and challenge those who listen to them. With Audio Secrecy, Stone Sour are picking up momentum; fuck knows what comes next.

It seems that Corey Taylor’s plea of ‘Just tell me who I am’ in the album’s opener Mission Statement is a bit out of place. Stone Sour certainly know themselves (and their sound) better than ever. Mission accomplished. 

Always looking in,

The Outsider

Rating: 8.5/10