Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Intelligent, inventive and ingenious: a modern metal masterpiece, 14 Jan 2008
In case you didn't get the memo, the Dillinger Escape Plan are freakin' AWESOME. 1999's Calculating Infinity is one of the most influential hardcore/metal albums of all time, and while it may still be the last word in ultra-complex aural punishment, their subsequent recorded output has ensured they've kept the bar suitably high. 2004's Miss Machine is still a personal favourite, despite the fact that in many people's eyes it lacked the sheer, uncompromising brutality of its predecessor. Nevertheless, it marked a step forward in the evolution of the band - not least because it was their first release with new frontman Greg Puciato - and was followed by a download-only EP featuring 3 covers and 2 re-recorded tracks from Miss Machine. However, following the departure of drummer and founder member Chris Pennie, the emergence of a new DEP full-length appeared to be in doubt until autumn last year...
And so to Ire Works. Well, if you haven't heard it already, there is one track in particular on this album that sums up exactly where Dillinger are at right now. That track is called 'Black Bubblegum' - a stunning, impossibly catchy pop/metal number that features the muscle-bound Puciato snarling like a constipated pitbull one moment and crooning, Justin Timberlake-style, the next. As one reviewer has already noted, this isn't the DEP that fans of Calculating Infinity will know and love, but to disown a band for being this inventive, this ballsy and this capable of side-stepping any silly labelling (spazz-core? What does that actually MEAN?!) would be just plain stupid. Make no mistake: Ire Works is a masterpiece of creativity, the band unafraid of virtually any undertaking (as the aforementioned Black Bubblegum illustrates) and - what's more - pulling it off with style and panache. So, whether they're tipping their hat to My Chemical Romance on 'Milk Lizard' or working in passages of restrained, sonic creepiness, you're guaranteed of a surprising, enthralling listen throughout.
That's not to say they don't go full tilt on Ire Works in the old, traditional DEP style (see opener 'Fix Your Face', 'Lurch' and 'Party Smasher') but what marks this album out as something special is the fact that the band can deliver a damn good tune along with the requisite technical wizardry - a simple pleasure, for sure, but one that far too many bands of the Dillinger Escape Plan's ilk forget about.
Matt Pucci
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12 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important album in extreme metal history, 15 Nov 2007
Why Dillinger Escape Plan's "IreWorks" is such an effective work of music.
***** First a note on D.E.P.'s genre to put things in context:
Dillinger Escape Plan come from a fruitful branch of the hardcore punk family tree called alternatively spazzcore/jazzcore/mathcore.
Hardcore is defined as the crystalisation of the punk after its first and brief wave (1976 to 1979) crashed on the rocks and dissipated into the spray of electronic pop/industrial/new wave/gothic/experimental etc.
The hardcore scenes in Britain and the US kept punk 'pure' and free from progressive reflexes. But hardcore did, however, muscle up, take on board elements from metal and became heavier, more aggressive, albeit inflexible in other stylistic shifts. Hardcore was written in stone ... and as heavy.
After a long period of 'purity' and insularity - and we have learned that the greater the stagnation the greater the revolution ... take the 15-year stylistic straitjacket (in jazz 1935 to 1950, roughly - a long time in tempestuous jazz history) of swing leading to the explosion of be-bop and later the even more radical outpouring of free jazz - the 'what if' spirit took hold: what if we sing in an emotion-rich, feelings-drenched 'clean' vocal with heart-wrenching choruses instead of the typical hardcore 'barked' vocals (emocore); what if we replaced simplicity with complexity (mathcore); what if we added jazz to the mix (jazzcore); what if we replaced the straightforward rhythmic pulse of hardcore with choppy, jerky, spasmodic twists in tempo (spazzcore); what if we fused hardcore with Gothenburg death metal and other styles from extreme metal (metalcore), what if we added electronica elements (technocore). Add your favourite abberation here.
But what makes "IreWorks" such a phenomenal album lays in the building blocks of ANY good music:
* Ambition and ability. 'We want to be the best' ... faster, sicker, more complex - and the determination to carry it through. D.E.P. can technically outplay most bands in metal (certainly) and 90% of bands out there, any genre. A lot of their honed instrumental chops come from their fascination with jazz. And their determination.
* Dynamics/climax and repose. D.E.P. make effective use of this ... they have the heaviosity of the grind end of the hardcore spectrum to counterbalance with stretches of quiet ambient electronica or light-touch jazz ... or even silence.
* Complexity. That's where the band's mathcore strain comes in - they take the structure of a riff, drum pattern or guitar line and look at mathematical possibilities for variations: inversion, disruption, adding, subtracting, altering, subverting. The musical line is looked at from various angles, many of which are expounded in dazzling sequences.
* Contradiction. Snares for the jaded ear - Dillinger switch styles suddenly ... spring surprises ... leave sonic booby traps to destroy the complacency of the listener. Some of these 'shocks' come in the form of jagged bursts of electronica.
* Diversity. Many styles are boldly experimented with (metal, jazz, electronica, pop) - but fusions are only used when the experiment is successful (the patient - Frankenstein - lives).
* Intensity. D.E.P. ARE a PUNK band, after all, and they stay true to the fire and aggression of their roots.
* Melody. Dillinger are not afraid of writing a hummable tune, not scared of SONGwriting. "Black Bubblegum" on "IreWorks" might even make the charts - but watch out for that barbed quitar break just before the final chorus, their way of saying "even when we croon we are EXTREME".
* Composition. Well-crafted pieces of music throughout the album - well-crafted instrumental arrangements, ordered thematic progressions and pyrotechnic dynamics.
* Texture - the vertical colour of sound as Eno would have it .... timbral enrichment to add piquancy to the horizontal flow of narrative. D.E.P. have absorbed, tastefully, electronic sound washes to add to the rich grain of their downtuned guitars.
* Mystery - one often asks of Dillinger: What are they up to? What are they going to do next? This is a good thing. We're listening. - Paul Drosdzol
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perfection., 9 Nov 2007
If you want the Dillinger of old then don't buy this album. If you are looking for an album of "Sugar Coated Sour" and "The Mullet Burden" type precision and rage, then I'm afraid you might be disappointed.
"Ire Works" mixes genres not normally associated with Dillinger such as electronica, goth and even pop with the familar anger, odd time signatures and outstanding musicanship(?) fans are used too.
This album is a piece of art in the sense that it must be appreciated as a whole. The melodies soar higher than bands synonymous with pop but the chaos and the aggression are like nothing I have ever witnessed before. "Ire Works", in my opinion, contains the hardest songs ever recored by the band, but in the most twisted way they have a groove, something you could almost grind you hips to. There is more sense to the chaos in this album that there was in the previous.
The biggest suprise is the melody. There are "songs" on this album, possibly songs which might get even get played on radio. Dillinger are fortunate that melody within there songs acts as the archetypal
quiet dynamic. When they unleash you now it. I dont want to mention song names in particular, I feel that would ruin the suprise of what to expect.
After listening to to the album an number of times on Myspace I cannot wait for the release of this CD. This album could, in the future, be considered to be one the defining Metal Albums ever.
Buy this album. Don't downloaded it. Bands like Dillinger deserve the money to be able to continue producing albums like this that will define metal for years to come.
Just my two cents.....
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