THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN
+ MAYBESHEWILL + DEATHCRUSH
Concert
THE DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN
The present's a fine enough place to start-after all, you're reading this because you want to know about the first DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN album in five fucking years - but for perspective's sake, let's step back for a minute. Fall, 1997: A handful of growing pains disguised as recordings behind them, five clean-cut suburban kids from northern New Jersey hit the studio to lay down some demo tracks. Roughly one year later, said kids find their three-song, eight-minute brainstorming session changing the growth trajectory of hardcore forever. Sure, it's been six years, multiple
line-ups and at least nine million changes in popular culture since The Dillinger Escape Plan made their Relapse Records debut with 'Under The Running Board,' but as the quintet rolls out 'Miss Machine,' its second album for the label, DILLINGER's present still sounds like everybody else's future.
But before we get into the how, why and what-the-@#$% of 'Miss Machine,' a bit of history - this is a bio, after all. Formed in March of '97 by high-school friends Ben Weinman (guitars), Adam Doll (bass), and Chris Pennie (drums)The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Dillinger Escape Plan added vocalist Dimitri Minakakis and that April recorded their debut, an eponymous mini-CD that showed the then-quartet struggling to push hardcore's boundaries with whatever tools were at their disposal: jazz and Latin-informed rhythms, industrial-rock atmospheres, blazing death-metal licks. By the time they added second guitarist John Fulton and made 'Under The Running Board,' those influences-as well as a balance of technique and brute force no other hardcore band had ever attempted-were focused to a knifepoint. Sure, DILLINGER may've looked like rejects from a J. Crew ad when they played the 1998 Milwaukee Metalfest - even more so when former Jesuit guitarist and J. Crew employee Brian Benoit replaced Fulton that November - but any doubts about the band's metal authenticity were gone by the first downstroke.
In September of 1999, The Dillinger Escape Plan once again proved they meant business with the release of their debut full-length, 'Calculating Infinity.' As with everything DILLINGER has done, the album was insanely complex, staggeringly detailed-and instantly polarizing: Either you'd hate it, orThe Dillinger Escape Plan, as the subsequent generation of "math metal" (a subgenre that didn't even exist pre-'Calculating Infinity') bands has proved, you'd spend your entire musical life trying to get your head around it. Calling '...Infinity' a fusion of styles (most noticeably jazz, metal, hardcore and electronic music) is selling it short: Sure, it sounds like jazz when Weinman and Benoit break into a squiggling guitar tag-team mid-song; and it sounds like hardcore when DILLINGER shifts into a crunching, off-time breakdown; but that's only because those sections are easy-to-grasp breaks in the action. The time-shifting, pulse-shattering bulk of 'Calculating Infinity' forces the listener to make sense of the record just as the title unintentionally suggests. (Hint: It's impossible.)
While the five years between 'Calculating Infinity' and 'Miss Machine' would've finished a lesser band, for The Dillinger Escape Plan, they only presented new opportunities. Minakakis left amicably in 2001, at the height of DILLINGER's ascent; auditions in 2002 led the remaining members to then-untested current vocalist Greg Puciato; a 2002 EP, 'Irony is a Dead Scene,' with FAITH NO MORE and MR. BUNGLE ringleader Mike Patton on vocals, drew harsh reactions from fans for its embracing of dynamics, samples, and, among other sins, APHEX TWIN; and, besides a few cover songs, there was no immediate sign of any new DILLINGER material with Puciato in front. Then came the 2003 soundtrack to the Lakeshore film Underworld, where DILLINGER stood out like an extended middle finger alongside big names such as A PERFECT CIRCLE, FINCH, David Bowie and TOOL's Maynard James Keenan. "Baby's First Coffin," DILLINGER's contribution and the band's first original track with Puciato on vocals, multiplied the aggression and the mathematical accuracy of 'Calculating Infinity' times 10 (math joke not intended) - but that wasn't what made it so striking.
In many ways, the influences that allowed DILLINGER's first mini-CD to stand out among metal and hardcore releases in 1997 are the same ones that are making 'Miss Machine' such an anomaly in 2004's fertile metal-hardcore crossover scene. Only this time, the industrial rock is unapologetically taking over whole tracks; the jazz and Latin accents are extending further and deeper than just five-second breaks; and the death metal, if it's there at all, is turning that genre into equations that'd stump an MIT professor. Sure, tracks such as "Baby's First Coffin," "Panasonic Youth" (for which DILLINGER shot their first professional music video), "Van Damsel" and "Perfect Design" are 'Calculating Infinity' and then some; their complexity seemingly inhuman to anyone who's never seen DILLINGER pull it off live. But in Weinman's words, "If we had to make 'Calculating Infinity' again, I don't think this band would even be here today. We couldn't - we're not just 'that band' anymore."
Indeed they aren't. See 'Miss Machine's' "Phone Home," where the electronic atmospheres and synthesized strings reflect not only Puciato's side project, ERROR, but the entire band's adoration of NINE INCH NAILS; the extended, piano-enhanced (gasp) 4/4 break in "Sunshine The Werewolf"; and "Unretrofied," whose industrial-tinged electronic groove is almost as surprising as its harmony vocals. Yes, harmony, strings, singing, piano and time signatures you can actually tap your foot to-these, rather than sheer brute force, are the elements that'll no doubt polarize DILLINGER's audience and set the message boards blazing yet again. Thing is, to hear the band tell it, they'd be disappointed if 'Miss Machine' didn't evoke that strong a reaction in people. After all, as Weinman has said, "This record is going to split our fanbase in half-the ones who get it, and everyone else." Don't know about you, but where we're standing, the future looks a hell of a lot brighter on the former side of that audience.
But before we get into the how, why and what-the-@#$% of 'Miss Machine,' a bit of history - this is a bio, after all. Formed in March of '97 by high-school friends Ben Weinman (guitars), Adam Doll (bass), and Chris Pennie (drums)The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Dillinger Escape Plan added vocalist Dimitri Minakakis and that April recorded their debut, an eponymous mini-CD that showed the then-quartet struggling to push hardcore's boundaries with whatever tools were at their disposal: jazz and Latin-informed rhythms, industrial-rock atmospheres, blazing death-metal licks. By the time they added second guitarist John Fulton and made 'Under The Running Board,' those influences-as well as a balance of technique and brute force no other hardcore band had ever attempted-were focused to a knifepoint. Sure, DILLINGER may've looked like rejects from a J. Crew ad when they played the 1998 Milwaukee Metalfest - even more so when former Jesuit guitarist and J. Crew employee Brian Benoit replaced Fulton that November - but any doubts about the band's metal authenticity were gone by the first downstroke.
In September of 1999, The Dillinger Escape Plan once again proved they meant business with the release of their debut full-length, 'Calculating Infinity.' As with everything DILLINGER has done, the album was insanely complex, staggeringly detailed-and instantly polarizing: Either you'd hate it, orThe Dillinger Escape Plan, as the subsequent generation of "math metal" (a subgenre that didn't even exist pre-'Calculating Infinity') bands has proved, you'd spend your entire musical life trying to get your head around it. Calling '...Infinity' a fusion of styles (most noticeably jazz, metal, hardcore and electronic music) is selling it short: Sure, it sounds like jazz when Weinman and Benoit break into a squiggling guitar tag-team mid-song; and it sounds like hardcore when DILLINGER shifts into a crunching, off-time breakdown; but that's only because those sections are easy-to-grasp breaks in the action. The time-shifting, pulse-shattering bulk of 'Calculating Infinity' forces the listener to make sense of the record just as the title unintentionally suggests. (Hint: It's impossible.)
While the five years between 'Calculating Infinity' and 'Miss Machine' would've finished a lesser band, for The Dillinger Escape Plan, they only presented new opportunities. Minakakis left amicably in 2001, at the height of DILLINGER's ascent; auditions in 2002 led the remaining members to then-untested current vocalist Greg Puciato; a 2002 EP, 'Irony is a Dead Scene,' with FAITH NO MORE and MR. BUNGLE ringleader Mike Patton on vocals, drew harsh reactions from fans for its embracing of dynamics, samples, and, among other sins, APHEX TWIN; and, besides a few cover songs, there was no immediate sign of any new DILLINGER material with Puciato in front. Then came the 2003 soundtrack to the Lakeshore film Underworld, where DILLINGER stood out like an extended middle finger alongside big names such as A PERFECT CIRCLE, FINCH, David Bowie and TOOL's Maynard James Keenan. "Baby's First Coffin," DILLINGER's contribution and the band's first original track with Puciato on vocals, multiplied the aggression and the mathematical accuracy of 'Calculating Infinity' times 10 (math joke not intended) - but that wasn't what made it so striking.
In many ways, the influences that allowed DILLINGER's first mini-CD to stand out among metal and hardcore releases in 1997 are the same ones that are making 'Miss Machine' such an anomaly in 2004's fertile metal-hardcore crossover scene. Only this time, the industrial rock is unapologetically taking over whole tracks; the jazz and Latin accents are extending further and deeper than just five-second breaks; and the death metal, if it's there at all, is turning that genre into equations that'd stump an MIT professor. Sure, tracks such as "Baby's First Coffin," "Panasonic Youth" (for which DILLINGER shot their first professional music video), "Van Damsel" and "Perfect Design" are 'Calculating Infinity' and then some; their complexity seemingly inhuman to anyone who's never seen DILLINGER pull it off live. But in Weinman's words, "If we had to make 'Calculating Infinity' again, I don't think this band would even be here today. We couldn't - we're not just 'that band' anymore."
Indeed they aren't. See 'Miss Machine's' "Phone Home," where the electronic atmospheres and synthesized strings reflect not only Puciato's side project, ERROR, but the entire band's adoration of NINE INCH NAILS; the extended, piano-enhanced (gasp) 4/4 break in "Sunshine The Werewolf"; and "Unretrofied," whose industrial-tinged electronic groove is almost as surprising as its harmony vocals. Yes, harmony, strings, singing, piano and time signatures you can actually tap your foot to-these, rather than sheer brute force, are the elements that'll no doubt polarize DILLINGER's audience and set the message boards blazing yet again. Thing is, to hear the band tell it, they'd be disappointed if 'Miss Machine' didn't evoke that strong a reaction in people. After all, as Weinman has said, "This record is going to split our fanbase in half-the ones who get it, and everyone else." Don't know about you, but where we're standing, the future looks a hell of a lot brighter on the former side of that audience.
DEATHCRUSH
MAYBESHEWILL
Gegründet in Leicester, UK, haben MAYBESHEWILL – das sind James Collins, Matthew Daly, John Helps, Robin Southby und Jamie Ward – stets danach gestrebt, so eigenständig wie möglich zu sein. Ihrem eisernen DIY-Ethos sind sie dabei immer treu geblieben und haben bis dato all ihr Material selbst aufgenommen. Mit ihren drei Full-Length-Alben und zahllosen Touren haben sie unermüdlich daran gearbeitet, eine loyale und enthusiastische Anhängerschaft auf dem ganzen Globus aufzubau- en. Anfang 2006 veröffentlichte die Band die 4-Track-Debüt-EP „Japanese Spy Transcript“ auf ihrem ei- genen Label (Robot Needs Home), das erste Album „Not For Want Of Trying“ erschien schließlich im Mai 2008 über Field Records. Bei seiner Veröffentlichung war das Album Huw Stephens Album der Woche in seiner Radio 1 Show und erhielt glühende Reviews von unter anderem RockSound (8/10), Kerrang! (4/5) und Drowned In Sound (8/10). Nur ein Jahr später erschien im Juni 2009 „Sing The Word Hope In Four-Part Harmony“, das ähnlich enthusiastisch gefeiert wurde. Bei ihrem dritten Al- bum „I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone“ übernahm Jamie Ward, der erst kurz zuvor als Bassist zur Band gestoßen war, die Produktion und sorgte in puncto Aufnahmequalität für einen deutlichen Schritt nach vorne. Zum ersten Mal fanden sich echte Streicher auf dem Album, das zu- dem in eine elektronischere Richtung ging. Veröffentlicht im Mai 2011, erhielt es viel Lob in der Mu- sikpresse wie RockSound, NME, Artrocker, Kerrang!, Big Cheese und Metal Hammer. Das finnische Eishockey-Nationalteam wählte den Albumtrack „Words For Arabella“ zudem zu seiner „Auslauf“- Musik bei der Weltmeisterschaft. Zweimal wurde das komplette Album im Kerrang!-Radio gespielt und brachte MAYBESHEWILL in zwei aufeinanderfolgenden Wochen eine „Band of the Week“- Auszeichnung auf RockSound.tv ein, was es zuvor noch nicht gegeben hatte. Touren ist seit jeher von fundamentaler Bedeutung für MAYBESHEWILL. Mit Kollegen wie 65daysofstatic, And So I Watch You From Afar, ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Lite und The Ocean haben sie sowohl UK als auch Kontinentaleuropa, Russland, China und Japan umfassend betourt. Nachdem sie ein paar rare Monate Tourpause eingelegt haben, um einen Gang zurückzuschalten und Bilanz zu ziehen, sind sie nun fest entschlossen, ihren DIY-Ansatz aufs nächste Level zu hieven. Via Selbstmanagement und Eigenproduktion und mit einem kleinen Kreis vertrauter Freunde zusam- menarbeitend, werden sie sich schon bald auf ihren bis dato ambitioniertesten Album-Zyklus bege- ben und dabei die Musik, die Produktion und das Touren bis zum Limit dessen pushen, was eine Band ihres Status erreichen kann. MAYBESHEWILLs viertes Studioalbum „Fair Youth“ wird in Deutschland am 22. August 2014 über Suberball Music (...Trail Of Dead, 65daysofstatic, Oceansize) veröffentlicht. Es ist ein überwältigend positives Album, auf dem die Band eine musikalische Lösung für den Umgang mit weltlichen Proble- men und Schwierigkeiten kreiert. Es greift Themen wie Nostalgie und Oneirismus auf, sowie die Ver- bindungen, Trennungen und das permanente Gefühl der Bewegung, das sich einstellt, wenn man sich so viele Monate eines Jahres auf Tour befindet. Einmal mehr hat Jamie die Produktion übernommen, dieses Mal jedoch hat die Band die Soundpalet- te und die verwendeten Instrumente erheblich erweitert. Indem sie wo immer möglich mit Live- Instrumentierung gearbeitet, zugleich aber auch das Reale mit elektronischen Schnörkeln verbessert haben, ist es sowohl das am meisten als auch das am wenigsten organische MAYBESHEWILL-Album überhaupt geworden. Inspiriert wurde es größtenteils von Einflüssen außerhalb jener Musikwelt, in der die Band existiert: von Wellen diesiger Shoegaze-Gitarren zu störanfälligem Electronica, von ab- gehackten und verschraubten Hip-Hop-Beats zu kunstvoller Chamber-Pop-Orchestrierung bis hin zu zahllosen anderen Fäden, die hier zusammenlaufen. Mit einem hundert Jahre alten Piano, Streicher- und Bass-Parts, einem gewaltigen alten Drumkit, Glockenspielen, Vibraphonen und einem Meer an Gitarren zeigt „Fair Youth“ eine Neu-Interpretation der Band als größeres Ensemble, das trotzdem ein geschlossenes Ganzes bleibt.
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