Album Review: Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works

This album came as somewhat of a surprise to me. I hadn't listened to Dillinger Escape Plan really before this. I have the Error EP that Greg Puciato sings on, but that was my only prior knowledge of this band. I had heard from a few friends that their last one, Miss Machine, was pretty good and I should check it out... I didn't. But when I found out the entire new album was streamed on MySpace I decided to give it a whirl. Within the first 10-15 seconds of each of the first few songs I decided not even to listen to it. It sounded good enough that when it comes out I'm gonna buy it. It came out on Tuesday and here I am Thursday writing the "review".

The album starts out loud and erratic. The first song, Fix Your Face, reminds me somewhat of Refused in style, although harder and screamier(which is rarely ever a bad thing, if you're me). The next song, Lurch, has some really crazy guitar parts, ranging between blistering solo riffs and heavy breakdowns. It even features a little piano, very little. Black Bubblegum is the first song that resembles anything close to Greg's involvement in Error, and almost sounds like it could be a Nine Inch Nails song. Sick on a Sunday quickly follows suit as another heavily electronic song. After a brief musical interlude, When Acting as A Particle, they come back with a mash-up of hardcore and electronic in Nong Eye Gong and another musical, When Acting as a wave. Their most interesting song on the album might be Milk Lizard, with a southerny metal guitar riff, faint horn section and the most diverse singing heard so far. The album only gets better and better with an awesome appearance by Brett Hinds of Mastodon on Horse Hunter as an added little treat.

I left out describing a few songs because I don't want to ruin the album by misrepresenting anything Dillinger Escape Plan have done. This is an incredibly interesting album, and from what I've read and heard of their earlier works is a perfect natural progression for the band. Although not as captivating as a few of my recent purchases (Between the Buried and Me), this has something of an addictive nature to it, hence my 10 consecutive playings on iTunes in the last day. All in all, a very solid album, I'll be wasting some more money quite soon on the rest of their stuff.

Here's a little insight into their songwriting.