Dillinger Escape Plan - Ire Works (Relapse)
3/5
By: Charlie Potter
These days, Dillinger Escape Plan are a sickening impersonation of their former selves. This is a sore point for me, as Calculating Infinity was one of the most important albums of my childhood, and one I still class as amazing. The best bits of Ire Works, oddly, are pretty much direct copies of things that happened on Calculating Infinity.
The band seem to have lost more than an incredible lyricist and vocalist when they lost Dimitri Minakakis. You get the impression that he was often at the sidelines saying 'no, that sounds ridiculous - stop it'. But if Dillinger Escape Plan want people like me to forgive them for Minakakis no longer being their singer, they need to at least change their name.
Dimitri does make an appearance on the opener 'Fix Your Face', but it's not really just the vocal that this new line up is missing, it's the depth to the lyrics, the samples, and just the general art element that he brought to the band.
Throughout Ire Works, I lapse in and out of feeling the expressed bitterness of the first paragraph. Although it's not the complete truth by any means, there are certainly a lot of bits here that just sound irritatingly like pieces of music that they wrote ten years ago. That said, there is a lot going on this album. The new singer, Greg Puciato, has settled in a lot better and has thankfully stopped doing Mike Patton impersonations. After all, Mike Patton didn't sound that great singing for them (check the Irony Is A Dead Scene EP), so we don't want someone that sounds like Mike Patton but isn't as good crooning all over the place. I have nothing against the idea of the crooning but I'm not sure that it works here, as I'm not convinced that this guy has a real passion for crooning. That, and he certainly sounds a lot better when he is shredding his chords. A lot of the big choruses just sound comparatively tacky. This is an all together much more poppy incarnation of Dillinger Escape Plan.
Yet there are some absolutely brilliant touches on Ire Works though, I have to hand it to them, they really have had a good play around with their sound. For example 'Sick on Sunday' has all kinds of interesting splazzy electronic clicking percussion in the foreground, and quiet thrashing guitar in the background, and it's only a shame that the melody is rubbish and they don't really take the ideas first mentioned anywhere.
And it is always a joy to hear this drummer - he is really something quite special. I guess that's the thing that is just so frustrating about this band - it's not just like they're talented, as there is no band in the world that even comes close technically speaking to being able to do what this band can do. I mean, how often can you say that? Bands have been trying to copy this sound for years, and they can't even come close. They've generally embarrassed themselves trying. But then Dillinger themselves keep taking these giant strides backwards...
I have actually have found myself quite drawn to listening to Ire Works, however. For me it's the sort of ultimate indulgence, a sort of guilty pleasure, really fast off beat deep thrashing, with heavy, speedy tight jazz drumming, but whilst listening to it there is just so much about it that makes me cringe.
Maybe it's that it's essentially a kids album, complete with undirected anger and big, meaningful, 'poor me!' choruses. Such as in 'Milk Lizard' - you can tell what he's trying to do, he's trying to do the Faith No More psychotic knowingness thing, but he just comes across as a big muscle-y man that likes to give people his poo in a bag (remember that Reading gig?), crying in to his lunch box. But then I have to admit it does sometimes work - they may even make a really good album in the future, and Ire Works is certainly a lot better than their last embarrassment. I really don't mind the crooning in places, I'm just not sure that this should extend in to choruses, as a lot of the time you feel like they're doing it for the sake of it, or to keep that young-with-disposable-income audience, who will always send money your way provided you make it really easy for them.
Whereas I am still stamping my feet whining about how I want Dimitri back, I have to hand it to Dillinger Escape Plan, as with Ire Works they really have made some massive ground up with me, and as the album is less than 40 minutes long it is not that unrealistic that I might listen to it out of, y'know, choice. But still no one has ever come close to replicating the genius of Calculating Infinity - and this line up is no exception.
Stream four tracks from 'Ire Works' HERE.
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