Everyone has an opinion on Dillinger Escape Plan. Love them or hate them, there’s no doubting the fact that their visibility is at its highest for the release of their second album, the brutally complex yet beautifully ornate ‘Miss Machine’. The title sums up the content perfectly as an enigmatic contradiction – feminine yet sterile, human yet mechanical – that runs throughout the album in various forms. Much has been made of the fact that there are moments of almost poppy melody here, or a splash of strings there but what is inescapable is the sense of control and power that pervades ‘Miss Machine’. Everything is calculated and precise, as if the quintet are simply following some mad schematic, but nevertheless the end result is one of the most exciting and challenging albums to have been released since, well, ‘Irony Is A Dead Scene’.
Obviously, the DEP trademarks are still present and correct, but only vaguely familiar enough to still be thrilling. The ten-fingered riffing is still as fast and heavy as ever, as the opening salvo of ‘Panasonic Youth’ and ‘Sunshine The Werewolf’ thrust into overdrive almost before they’ve even begun, punctuated with sporadic bursts of high-pitched viciousness that never fail to shock even on repeated listening. But even on the latter track there’s a middle-eight subtitled by an almost cinematic attack of strings and on first listen it appears to be slightly out of step with DEP’s trademark metallic barrage. Then it all makes sense; Dillinger are renowned for being masters of the insane and this is only an evolution of this. What is more shocking than the familiar being relocated to a terrifying new context and perverted beyond recognition?
One cursory listen to ‘Setting Fire To Sleeping Giants‘ only confirms this. Being an oasis of harmony and easily followable melody in an otherwise arid desert of intricate noise it lulls you into a false sense of security before it hits you that a few sung (rather than screamed) lines does not mean anything more than the fact that DEP have a hugely potent new weapon at their disposal, the iron larynx of new vocalist Greg Puciato. Being the first recording with Puciato (the ‘Irony…’ EP featuring the vocal talents of a certain Mike Patton), ‘Miss Machine’ shows his considerable range as becoming integral to the Dillinger sound. It’s clear that from the barbed yelps of ‘Baby’s First Coffin’ to the sinister singing on ‘Unretrofied’ he’s simply a huge talent that is as impressive as any of the considerable musicianship on display here.
All very interesting for fans, but is there anything new here? Of course – this entire album is a foray into new ways of being one of the best bands on the planet. ‘The Perfect Design’ is precisely that, a precision blast of madness and chaos, all stunningly distilled through a tooth-shatteringly heavy sound that closes the album with a quintessentially maddening frenzy of noise and subsequent cathartic silence. ‘Highway Robbery’ and ‘Van Damsel’ are recognisably DEP but not so that they’re predictable. Even when you’re well-versed in this band’s output it’s immeasurably pleasing to find that they can still surprise you with their constant evolution. I can’t recommend this album highly enough – it’s worth buying a new hifi for. But then again, when the Dillinger Escape Plan does something it’s rare to find any imperfections.
Ben
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