Bring Me The Horizon are a name that has always been a mixed bag, with their school by deathcore roots being heralded by some as genius, whilst after discovering that the first string on the guitar is all they needed then morphed into the band that created Suicide Season. Which in its own right is still a pretty good album birthing quite a lot of the Of Mice and Men‘s and Falling In Reverses of the current age. Not being content with this formula the band strived for more on their third release the awkwardly titled There Is A Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let’s Keep It A Secret. Where they remained with the riff heavy structure and began to add in slightly more pop elements, then came Sempiternal. Where all hipsters seemed to rejoice, complete with nonsensical tattoo inspired artwork, that has I’m sure since been branded on countless easily influenced teens, supposedly album of the year. It received rave reviews all over, personally myself, I think that there were elements of genius on there and grand ideas that will lead to more opportunities later down the line.
Giving us a foreshadowing of what is to come, “Drown” the bands latest effort a single release before their new album set to release in 2015 is just complete crap. With a ridiculous video accompanying the song, whereas in the past their videos have been executed with class. Well shot, great editing and a some form of narrative the band have just released a load of contemporary rubbish. Now instead of retaining any form of integrity that they originally had the new single is completely devoid of ANY of the characteristics that broke the band in the first place. Yes the deathcore roots of Count Your Blessings have been long gone but there was still some element of riffing going on. This has now been replaced with self righteous “leads”, the ever growing choir and now includes a pianist?! Ensuring that all tattooed clones that are more interested in both trends and fashion than actual credibility of song writing will lap it up. The U2 of the alternative scene has most definitely arrived, chock full of lacklustre melodies and a poster boy Bono the band will fill up stadiums perhaps, but will they ever retain any form of dignity.
In a word, total shite.