The Dillinger Escape Plan - 'Ire Works' (Relapse)
Sometimes new releases just take me by surprise, being a busy working man and all. But when I heard that The Dillinger Escape Plan - a band that’s been helping me go deaf for years - had just released their third full-length disc, Ire Works, I had one thought: What direction would they now take - a progression of the more-polished and accessible prior release Miss Machine, or a revisiting of the uber-technical and abrasive sounds of Calculating Infinity?
At risk of dividing their fanbase even further, this New Jersey five-piece that specializes in mixing hardcore brutality, jazzy technicality and good old fashioned punk energy has taken the latter route and fully adopted another ingredient - a pop sensibility.
The band’s long-faithful need not worry, as the group who brought you pummeling ditties like “Sugar Coated Sour” and “Panasonic Youth” isn’t exactly following in Maroon 5’s footsteps just yet.
It’s just that even when vocalist Greg Puciato is screaming his head off or the superhumanly precise instrumentalists are unleashing a blistering full-band rhythmic assault, they somehow can always find a catchy hook. For the first time in their career aside from maybe Miss Machine’s aptly-named oddball “Retrofied, the band is creating sounds most listeners - your Miley Cyrus-obsessed little cousin included - might actually consider music.
At 38.4 minutes, Ire Works is no epic. But at the same time it flows better than previous records with most tracks only a couple of minutes long and leading right into each other, often integrating piano-based interludes or quite-effective ambient sound effects. Indeed, the band seems to have a better sense of the bigger picture, knowing when to ease back the aural assault and let the music breathe.
“Fix Your Face” opens the disc sounding most like the Dillinger of old, except now the production is so good you can hear every nuanced guitar detail (something this band’s axemen have always excelled at) bass lick and drum roll loud and clear.
There’s plenty more for the old school fan, as brief bursts of fury like “Nong Eye Gong” and “Party Smasher” get the blood boiling just long enough.
“Black Bubblegum,” though, has Puciato alternating a delicate falsetto and a cynical snarl in the band’s most unabashedly radio-ready song yet, and a driving guitar riff mixed with vintage horns helps “Milk Lizard” come off like an twisted modern-day update of the Peter Gunn theme song. Metal fan or no, if you’re not bobbing your head to this one you either don’t like music or only use the medium as an excuse to flail your body around in a mosh pit.
The Latin-grooved closer “Mouth of Ghosts” is among the most impressive things the band has ever recorded, simply because of way that after everything else it seems to clear your mind, channeling Santana and Charles Mingus in a way you might not expect from the band who brought you “43% Burnt” all those years ago.
In the end, I suppose your enjoyment of Ire Works depends on what you want to get out of it. If all you need is something loud, chaotic and relentlessly complicated, you can always put on Calculating Infinity for the millionth time. But if you listen to music because you love the craft and enjoy hearing a band develop its skills further into new types of sounds, then this disc will be a gem in your collection, as it is The Dillinger Escape Plan’s most accomplished and listenable disc to date.
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Pete Oliva is a copy editor for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4432.
