Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works

  by Paul Raven

published: 10 / 12 / 2007

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Review

You've got to feel a little bit sorry for bands like the Dillinger Escape Plan, because the poor buggers just can't win – even when they release an album as strong and diverse as 'Ire Works', some fans are never satisfied. To some extent, the same problem dogs all bands; it's an extension of Difficult Second Album Syndrome. A new band arrives on the scene with a brilliant début that smashes boundaries and preconceptions, wins them a barrel full of fans and establishes them as innovators. But as much as people claim to love innovation, what they mean deep down is that they love this particular iteration of innovation. Deviating from the now-established line will not please everyone. It's a Catch-22 – if the second album sounds just like the first, people will complain that they've not moved on, that they're retreading a now-familiar path. If they do something new, people will complain it doesn't sound enough like the earlier material (which is how the age-old “I liked their earlier work before they sold out” complaint comes into existence). To their great credit, the Dillinger Escape Plan have never been afraid to alienate people by doing whatever the hell they want to with their music. But it strikes me as strange that a goodly percentage of the people I know who are fans of the band have complained that 'Ire Works' sounds too much like [album x], or not enough like [album y]. Surely the entire appeal of a band like this is that you never know quite what they're going to come up with next? If you want predictability from an artist, the charts are still in the same places they've always been ... But enough of my ranting – what I'm trying to get at is the fact that 'Ire Works' continues the Dillinger Escape Plan tradition of expanding in new directions and retracting from others. Their sound evolves over time, and this is how it should be. 'Ire Works' has plenty of the high-intensity technical metal that they're (arguably) best known for, but there are also a number of songs that verge on being pop; psychotic high-octane pop played on metal instrumentation, sure, but pop nonetheless. Take 'Black Bubblegum', for example, which for all its sprawling architecture and growling savagery is an incredibly catchy and memorable tune that will stalk you for the rest of the day after listening to it. Or 'Milk Lizard', perhaps – inexplicably weird, but hooky as hell. Balanced against the beauties are the beasts – the relentless bludgeon and savagery of 'Lurch' and 'Nong Eye Gong” being good examples. And then there are the bits in between that are even harder to categorise, and demonstrate the intellectual playfulness of the band; 'When Acting As A Particle' and 'When Acting As A Wave” give a little nod to nuclear physics and quantum uncertainty with their titles, and showcase a band who've learned that the studio and engineer are an extra instrument and musician, respectively. The whole album is packed tight with invention and ideas; the Dillinger Escape Plan have never been a one-trick pony, and they can change modes from song to song just as easily as from album to album - as far as I'm concerned, that's a sign of musical health, and damn the doubters. The day that this band release an album that doesn't annoy a lot of people for not being what they expected it to be will be the day I start to worry that they've lost their mojo. On the evidence of 'Ire Works', however, it appears that day is a long way off yet.

Track Listing:-

1 Fix Your Face
2 Lurch
3 Black Bubblegum
4 Sick On Sunday
5 Whan Acting As A Particle
6 Nong Eye Gong
7 When Acting As A Wave
8 82588
9 Milk Lizard
10 Party Smasher
11 Dead As History
12 Horse Hunter
13 Mouth Of Ghosts

Label Links:-

http://www.warnerbrosrecords.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/warnerbrosrec