When the first crisp roar of the Dillinger Escape Plan's 2007 album Ire Works startles you to attention like a Nazi salute, a very distinct first-impressions judgement is likely to be made. Anyone unfamiliar or simply not used to "roars" as opposed to "croons" in terms of vocal style will likely dismiss this record quickly unless they are of a particularly adventurous mindset. I was of a particularly adventurous mindset when I bought this record. It was probably that and my financial sacrifice in obtaining it that drove me to familiarise myself with the whole thing and not just the shocking Fix Your Face that opens the record.
The first respite comes at the beginning of the third track Black Bubblegum with a moment's rest from the cacophony of the first two tracks. I don't like to generalize but anyone who is - like me - completely lost during the first two tracks Fix Your Face and Lurch will probably first find something accessible in Black Bubblegum. I got into the record through the immediate enjoyment of the singles Black Bubblegum and Milk Lizard. Both these songs are catchy - the only songs on the album that are - and feature moments of more accessible vocal styling. In Milk Lizard there is even an opening riff! However, now that I have familiarised myself with the record I can see that there are lots of riffs, it's just that they were too original for me, too unlike what I am was used to listening to, and I was unable to recognise them.
Guitarists Ben Weinman and Jeff Tuttle use
abstract chord sequences that are unconventional to say the least. Fans of Dillinger Escape Plan have criticised Ire Works (their third album) for its occasional power chord or consecutive octave. I personally think that in creating their goal they have employed whatever was necessary and sometimes power chords were just that. As a composer why would you want to limit your compositional tools because of an ideology or principle? The guitar work is harmonically unique in today's world of music.
A friend of mine will often tell me that he thinks a piece of music is 'awful' and it is usually when the piece of music is very different to what he is accustomed to listening to. I think that when we listen to music we subconsciously try to recognise certain things, those things that we have heard and liked before in other pieces of music. This was my problem with Ire Works. I shall give some examples to try to clarify my point. 1) A professional soccer player is being introduced to the game called Rugby. The soccer player recognises that this game also involves a big pitch made of grass, two teams, boots with studs, posts resembling some sort of goal, lines on the pitch, and a ball (despite it's odd shape). If the footballer is told to begin playing without knowing the rules, I think it would be fair to say that he might try to dribble with the ball which would of course be illegal. The soccer player took what he knew from soccer and tried to apply it and find it to be true in this new game. His justification for doing so would probably be along the lines of how similar the two games seemed to be. 2) An avid metal listener being introduces to the serene melodic sequences of Bach might think it "bad" because one can't really headbang to Bach.
Dillinger Escape Plan have found something truly original in this record: a soundscape that is itself a commentary on aspects of contemporary culture. A persistent feature of the record is the very clear sound of what appears to be a kind of robot mosquito. The idea of this sound being an insect is completely my own and not an intention of Dillinger Escape Plan as far as I know. While listening to the record I am reminded of the official video to Radiohead's song House of Cards which was filmed without a camera, the footage was created by data. I interpreted this as a point about how much data representation there is in the world today. For example, Facebook allows a person to represent themselves using electronic data and pixels, is this that different to our human construction of atoms and DNA?
The album leaflet corroborates this theme with a minimalistic yet subliminally deep design that leads the listener/viewer through an online puzzle to uncover some philosophical maxims. However, these "themes" - one example would be the title of one of Nietzsche's books Beyond Good and Evil - are not prevalent in the albums lyrics. The aggression and overt show of masculinity that can be witnessed in their live performances and seemingly through their music does not manifest in the lyrics. Having read through the booklet I was expecting something more broadly philosophical like in a Metallica album and was surprised. This is actually a really good example of the mistake I mentioned earlier of looking for things in something new. I was looking for philosophising akin to that of James Hetfield in a completely unrelated work.
The lyrics are more about humanity and human relationships than anything else. I am hoping that the more I listen to this record the more the psychoanalysis in the lyrics connects with the philosophical maxims in the booklet. Perhaps here I am giving them more credit than is due, a more realistic approach would be this: lyrically the album is a messy and I am trying to justify that it isn't by saying that I haven't worked the whole thing out yet. I think this is something for the listener to discover for themselves.
The album is very short at nearly 39 minutes; sceptics may brandish Dillinger Escape Plan as lazy but the diversity of ideas easily obliterates this claim. It's short, because it's hardcore. The track lengths are as follows (rounded to the nearest number): 3, 2, 4, 2, 1, 1, 1, 2, 4, 2, 5, 3, 7. Longer tracks might simply make it harder to listen to. In fact, the lack of clear structuring in individual songs (apart from the two singles) is one of the most compelling aspects of the record. It's high-powered which can be quite exhausting, especially to new listeners of very distorted sound. One downfall of this is that the initial effect wears off as one acclimatizes to the music, but who knows, that could be what they intended...
I think it would be fair to say that a top priority of Dillinger Escape Plan is to write rhythms that are totally original. A standard pop drum beat could be phonetically written as such: dum bap dum bap, a Dillinger Escape Plan beat simply could not be written in this medium. Drummer Gil Sharone is truly an innovator. I tend to like music that has a focus on original rhythm so if you are like me DEP could be right up your alley.
I am still thoroughly enjoying this record which I bought more than a year ago. I find it to be brilliantly original, persistently creative and difficult to work out. This mystery both in terms of sound and meaning only makes it more interesting for me. I hate to make judgements about music and it's listeners but here we go: I strongly recommend this album to someone who calls a piece they like 'interesting' as opposed to 'awesome'. Dillinger Escape Plan is most definitely NOT very everybody, especially people who like conventional time signatures.
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Feb 5th, 2009
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