There Is A Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Lets Keep It A Secret [CD]

`There Is A Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let's Keep It A Secret,' is the third full length studio album from British metal band Bring Me The Horizon. The album is one of the most adventurous and exciting records to have been released in years and is chocked full of dynamic, boundary pushing material that is likely to alienate as many people as it delights.

Bring Me The Horizon started out mixing extreme metal with metal core and as time went on reduced the number of straight up death metal riffs, death growls and blast beats until now, with their third studio album there is scarcely a second of music that sounds like a strictly death metal band would play, if this is a problem for you it may make sense to give this album a miss.

For everyone who enjoyed `Suicide Season,' and its electronic moments, vocal approach and powerful emotion guitar moments this album is the logical conclusion, expanding on all these areas, basing entire songs around things that were only in parts of the previous album and while using barely any death vocals and not a single blast beat they have kept things fresh by introducing numerous clean vocals, acoustic passages and keyboard lines.

The best example of this style is the opening track, lyrically containing the album title sang by a female vocalist then electronically cut up and played like a keyboard solo in the same song that contains a clean intro, furious fast paced verses and a monster breakdown in the style of bands like Hatebreed and Chimaira towards the end.

If you are worried that the album won't be heavy enough, that the breakdowns are gone or that the album is too much of a departure from the excellent `Suicide Season,' sound then you will be delighted with tracks like `Anthem,' `Visions,' and `The Fox and the Wolf,' which very much pick up where `Suicide Season,' left off so while the album does contain a great deal of innovative ideas and cover lots of new ground, there is still enough of what the band had been doing previously to ease the transition and connect the two styles together comfortably.

Standout tracks include the fantastic opener `Crucify Me,' along wit the powerful semi-ballads `Don't Go,' and `Blessed With A Curse,' all of which exemplify just what makes this record so great; fresh ideas, inspired performances and truly unique music.

There Is A Hell' is honestly the best album the band have released and it is without hyperbole the best album the genre and the country has offered in some time, I can't recommend it any more highly.

If you already know Bring me the Horizon's sound then this album pretty much carries on where the last one left off. There are more colaborations with guest vocalists here which come in the form of clean female and male vocals in a couple of songs. The electronic sounds have been beefed up too and they play a bigger part than before. Overall this is a great album which sounds like the band have grown into the sound they started to find on the last album - mixing harsh screams with gravelly vocals and heavy guitar as well as powerful drums.

Make no mistake though, the band make use of the trademark sounds of before sparingly and really create a very atmospheric album, this is not simply beatdown after beatdown broken up with clear singing a la metalcore bands. In the UK these guys are leading the pack in terms of new and contemporary heavy music.

The ambiguous title of this review stems from the fact that I actually enjoyed this album... but conversly I didn't like the last one. Now, I loved Count Your Blessings because of it's chunky Death Metal leanings and then I was disappointed with Suicide Season because a lot of that element was absent... so now, I enjoy this new album, but is that because they are performing their new style better or simply because I knew what to expect this time? Difficult to tell... I still don't really like Suicide Season that much so maybe they have improved. With that said, on with the review:

How does it sound? Well, to echo the sentiments of other reviews I've read it does sort of pick up where Suicide Season left of stylisticly. If you missed that album that means more melodic elements i.e. clean vocals/acoustic parts and some subtle electronica influence in some of the more ambient sections. Aside from that there are plenty of chunky guitar riffs, it isn't as heavy as Count Your Blessings but it's still got quite a crunch to it. The production is nice and clear and it has turned out as quite a neat little album. The melodic elements seem to blend in better with the music rather than just being randomly chucked in as I felt they were on the last album.

Vocals? Well, very very few gutteral death grunts. I fully expected a lack of them but it doesn't stop me from being disappointed. Mostly the mid-range hardcore sounding vocals from the last album here then, with the occasional section were Oli Sykes speaks in an exaggerated accent which only serves to annoy (I do quite dislike Oli Sykes anyway, but I'm trying not to let it colour the review). Overall the performance is consistent, solid and overall passable... there are parts which are quite cool but on the whole there isn't very much variety on offer.

Lyrics? Much like other Bring Me The Horizon albums which I would define as largely based around Oli Sykes chanting slogans over heavy riffs (sometimes the slogans are clever/cool and other times they are stupid/cringeworthy). Topics mostly revolve around Oli Sykes whining about how hard his lovelife is (I know, right?) and how people don't like him. Sometimes it's actually executed quite well, other times it comes across as immature and bitter. Some of the lyrics seem a bit less personal, like the title track, and he does seem to be branching out a bit. This seems like a good progression as I quite enjoyed some of the less personal lyrics on the album.

Recommended? To some people definately yeah. I think if you liked the last album you'll probably like this one but even if you didn't like that it might still be worth giving this one a try since I find it better. If you don't like hardcore-y sounding vocals then probably steer clear. If you don't like scene bands trying to cram electronica into their songs because they think it's trendy and ironic then steer clear. Overall... if you hate Bring Me The Horizon they probably aren't doing much here that's going to change your mind.

Dom x