Bring Me The Horizon - There Is A Hell... Review

Since the release of 2008’s Suicide Season, Bring Me The Horizon has been catapulted into the forefront of the modern metalcore scene, garnering many fans and even more haters. Whether you love them or despise them, both sides love to talk about this band, especially front man Oli Sykes, sometimes to the point where it overshadows the actual music. While Suicide Season featured some sick tracks, it disappointingly lacked an incredible amount of substance. The Sheffield, England, quintet definitely had the talent to create a behemoth of an album, so it was much to my delight that Bring Me The Horizon finally proves it on their third studio album, There Is A Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It, There Is A Heaven Let’s Keep It A Secret.

After my initial listen, I was floored. Is this seriously the same band? Everything has improved – the songwriting, the compositions, and especially the lyrics. Debauchery was the general gist of Suicide Season, whereas some of the themes of There Is A Hell revolve around the consequences of that album. While Sykes lyrics remain as vague as ever, they’ve never been as vulnerable. Throughout the album, he struggles with his inner demons, thus the title. It immediately begins with the vicious six-and-a-half minute opener, “Crucify Me.” The beauty is in the contrast. From the changes in tempo to the vocal exchanges between Sykes and guest vocalist Lights, your attention never wanders off. It sets the entire tone of the album. The aggressive first single, “It Never Ends,” is another example. Aided by electrifying guitar riffs (courtesy of Lee Malia and Jona Weinhofen), strings, and a backing choir, Sykes exposes more of his past struggles.

Needless to say, this isn’t going to be Suicide Season Part 2, as the band continues to throw curves with the somber “Don’t Go.” It starts out hauntingly as strings and gentle guitar strums setting the mood before Sykes passionately screams, "God forgive me for all my sins!/God forgive for everything!” It's the most vulnerable song in the band's career, as Sykes turns in his best performance. Lights makes another appearance here, as she and Sykes share a fantastic call-and-return scene. She’s not the only guest vocalist who has substantial impact on a track. Josh Franceschi (of You Me At Six) delivers the emotional punch to “Fuck.” His line, “How can I say goodbye when I’ve hardly said hello?,” is the song’s core, as Sykes shares his frustration over the fact he hardly gets to spend any quality time with his girlfriend....full text Bring Me The Horizon. To some, it resembles the epitome of brutality, cleverly invented riffs and well-thought out lyrics; however, to some, it is exactly the opposite, corny one liners, cheap, recycled riffs and the epitome of what is wrong with the metal community. ‘Love them or hate them’, even the band themselves recite this line and it rings true on their newest album, the exhaustively titled ‘There Is A Hell Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let’s Keep It A Secret.’

There really is no need to go into a history of this band to develop the background on how Bring Me The Horizon progressed to releasing this album. To be brief, Bring Me The Horizon play straight up deathcore, which has started to progress further into metalcore territory for each album they’ve released. ‘There is a Hell…’ see’s Bring Me The Horizon breaking out all the guns, not just relying only on your basic guitar, bass and drum approach to create an atmosphere. While the haters are going to keep on stringently believing that this is merely another sign that the Oli Sykes Band is continuing on their downward trend of ‘selling out’, even one such as myself cannot deny that use of stings and orchestra used throughout the record (songs like ‘Crucify Me’ and ‘Don’t Go’, for example) are cleverly placed to give ‘There is a Hell…’ surprising depth that would never have been guessed with these guys five years ago.

The production is yet another thing to write about on this record. ‘There is a Hell…’ was produced by renowned heavy metal producer Fredrik Nordstrom, known most famously for his work with Gothenburg heavy weights In Flames, At The Gates and Dark Tranquility. His nuances behind the sound and mixing board have made bands famous in the past and it still continues to show years later in ‘There is a Hell…’ He can make songs that would normally be considered either subpar or uninspired and can bring out the positive aspects of it to truly make them shine. Songs like ‘F*ck, ‘It Never Ends’, and ‘Alligator Blood’ could have just further weighted the record down, but credit goes to Nordstrom for making these songs interesting yet still retaining the ‘heavy’ aspect to them. His ability to reign in Sykes vocals to be more in tune with the guitars are laudable and give Bring Me The Horizon a ‘kick in the pants’, bringing the album more alive than felt on any of their previous records.

Now at this point there really hasn’t been any talk about the negatives of this album. This is simple, Bring Me The Horizon have gone done the nigh impossible from a musical critique point of view, and have released a surprisingly competent album. The highlights of this album are particularly so to accentuate the fact that they have done just exactly that, mainly in response to the naysayers of the band, which are multitude. Make no mistake; this is still Bring Me The Horizon. This is still the same band that people either hate or love, most of the time, uncompromisingly. ‘There is a Hell…’ still suffers from some of the same mistakes and downfalls that brought ‘Suicide Season’ to its knees. ‘Blacklist’ is utterly laughable in its attempt to be ‘brutal’ and ‘semi-truck heavy’, coming off as only an extremely poorly thought out show of musicianship that shows the bad side of deathcore, with constant chugging to nothing and open stringed breakdowns galore. Bring Me The Horizon still refer back to the mindless ‘chugg-chugg’ pattern on nearly all their songs that still hinders them down massively throughout the entire album, even with the multitudes of guest singers (featuring the likes of Lights of all people!), it still handicaps ‘There is a Hell…’...full text Artist: Bring Me The Horizon
Title: There Is A Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let's Keep It A Secret.
Label: Epitaph Records/Visible Noise/Shock Records
Producer: Fredrik Nordström

At first mention of this album, I was annoyed by its never-ending title, There Is A Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let's Keep It A Secret, then came the artwork which slightly confused me but that I sorta liked. When the first single "It Never Ends" premiered online in August, I was slightly more stoked for the record, then a couple weeks later "Fuck" with guest vocals from You Me At Six's Josh Franceschi appeared on the world wide web. These two lead up singles have fed fans full with great anticipation for the next musical creation from Midlands, UK trash/metalcore quintet, Bring Me The Horizon. Did they deliver one heck of an audio feast? Yes indeed.

The album isn't chaotic and all over the place, its conistent, instrumentally daring; the production mixes BMTH's mainstay of thrash punk rock-induced vocals and hardcore screams with violins, electro-keyboard, and dubstep. The guitar work towards the end of "Blessed with a Curse" is reminiscent of classic rock solos. The guest vocal choices certainly add to There is a Heaven...'s versatile sound; Josh Franceschi clean vocals on "Fuck You" are matched well with Oli Sykes' screams, echoing: "We're young and in love. Heart attacks waiting to happen. So come a little closer, tell me those three little words." Track no. 6, "Home Sweet Hole" is a high energy spastic favorite that peaks with an epic title chant in the chorus and fast pace drumming. "Alligator Blood" reminds me of old school brutal punk/hardcore, circa-1980s Black Flag, distorted guitars, uptempo drums, upfront and angry vocals... I'll tag this the "mean" song; its just simply raw and brutal.

The stand out track on this record features guest vocals from Canada's LIGHTS, "Don't Go", this track sings like an autobiography of a tortured soul. The lyrics are haunting: "I was raised in the valley. There was shadows of death. Got out alive but with scars I can't forget...." The lyrics are soul baring: "Tell me that you need me cause I love you so much. Tell me that you love me cause I need you so much." Oli's overbearing yet vulnerable soul cry joined by LIGHTS' delicate vocals brings the emotions in this song alive to the listener. Your ears can't help but be attentive to the lyrics and your heart can't help but feel the desperation. Both duets ("Crucify Me") between Oli and LIGHTS are in two words, beautifully meshed; the vocal mashing of beauty and the beast.

And what about "The Fox and the Wolf" with Josh Scogin of The Chariot, well...vocals for Oli and Josh are on point, upfront vocal brutal duality, but too short... the song isn't even 2 minutes. My only downer.

Bring Me The Horizon's latest offering isn't your average '10-track, 30-minute' hardcore album, its chock full of lyrics and varied instrumentation, the first track is 6 minutes and 19 seconds; the average track is over 4 minutes. Music calls forth emotion, this record is not the average dull breakdown/autotune pop you find with most American post-hardcore bands, There is a Hell... sings emotions. These British bad boys set themselves apart from the typical scene and own their sound. This release is a strong musical effort, a cohesive combination of lyrical content and production, without a doubt There is a Hell...There is a Heaven is Bring Me The Horizon's best album to date. Buy it in stores and online on October 4th (U.K./Europe), October 5th (U.S./Canada), October 6th (Japan), October 8th (Australia/Germany/Switzerland/Austria)....full text