The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation (Album Review)
Monday, 17 October 2016
Written by Alec Chillingworth
The Dillinger Escape Plan will break up after this album cycle and that sucks. There’s nothing we can do about it, but at least they’ve administered ‘Dissociation’ to numb the pain.
In terms of full-lengths, hindsight tells us that the band have never delivered less than a 9/10 in a recording career that spans 17 years. ‘One Of Us Is The Killer’, their last LP, was a tad predictable compared to their previous output but even that, when viewed as part of a discography as wild as a knifeman on a broken rollercoaster, was unpredictable in itself.
With ‘Dissociation’, the Dillinger Escape Plan still endeavour to use your ribcage as an accordion, but the pressure is exerted in a multitude of ways. Limerent Death, a sickening, lovelorn ode, kicks the LP off with that ‘One Of Us Is The Killer’ sludge and a dose of mathcore lunacy.
Ben Weinman’s choppy riffs are inescapable and Greg Puciato’s seething, unhinged delivery of the line “I gave you everything you wanted, you were everything to me” escalates with such rancour you do wonder if, by the end of it, he’s got any veins left in his neck.
There are groove-oriented ‘Miss Machine’ callbacks during the final throes of Wanting Not So Much To As To and Manufacturing Discontent, meanwhile, that almost serve to admonish bands who’ve made careers out of a similar approach: “There you go, Lamb Of God. That’s how you do it, DevilDriver.”
Puciato and Weinman’s work with members of Mastodon in Killer Be Killed and Giraffe Tongue Orchestra respectively may go some way to explaining Symptom Of Terminal Illness’ progressive ‘Crack The Skye’-homage post-chorus, but it is still trampled on with a distinctly Dillinger-shaped footprint.
Even Honey Suckle isn’t something you could call ‘standard’ Dillinger. Its Mr. Bungle-esque, jazzy interludes are parried by the pounding of Bill Rymer’s bass drum during the intro: do you clap your hands or prepare to flail around to ever-fluctuating time signatures? Sick On Sunday, from ‘Ire Works’, is recalled on Fugue thanks to its glistening electronics, but much of ‘Dissociation’ feels like Dillinger bottling their essence and spraying it onto the flames generated by their scorched musical contemporaries.
Faith No More frontman and one-time Dillinger vocalist Mike Patton is a presence in Puciato’s croons, but the vocalist isn’t aping him. Surrogate possesses a heartfelt, heinous drawl that’s evocative of his predecessor but never derivative. Much like the transcendent mouthpiece Patton has long been, Puciato builds on something familiar and reinvents it here.
For all Dillinger’s absurdities – Low Feels Blvd has a section that sounds like Mr. Bungle bullying Randy Rhoads atop a mountain made of calculators – and Puciato’s piss-inducing screams, the tail-end of ‘Dissociation’ will get you weeping. Nothing To Forget is every bit as experimental as the output of a band like Vampillia, with Rymer and Liam Wilson’s erratic rhythm section underpinning said madness, but Puciato’s silken vocals and the introduction of orchestration change everything to add a full stop to the Dillinger Escape Plan’s recorded work.
On the title track, Puciato’s performance is a direct hit on the feels factory. As the subdued, atmospheric backing track fades into the ether, the vocalist is left alone in the darkness, simply stating: “Finding a way to die alone.” It will evoke tears, raise hairs, the works. It’s a far cry from the band’s feral, comparatively simplistic self-titled EP nearly two decades ago.
Unlike their Depression-era gangster namesake, the members of the Dillinger Escape Plan can bow out in a dignified fashion. They’re not going to go out in a hail of bullets behind a theatre; they’re throwing in the towel at the peak of their powers, leaving us feeling short-changed but knowing that, were there any more, a perfect run could’ve been scuppered. This is the best album you will hear this year and the best album by the Dillinger Escape Plan.
The Dillinger Escape Plan Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Wed January 18 2017 - NORWICH Waterfront
Thu January 19 2017 - GLASGOW QMU
Fri January 20 2017 - MANCHESTER Academy 2
Sat January 21 2017 - NOTTINGHAM Rock City
Sun January 22 2017 - BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute
Mon January 23 2017 - CARDIFF Tramshed
Wed January 25 2017 - LONDON O2 Forum Kentish Town
Thu January 26 2017 - BRIGHTON Concorde 2
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