There is a Hell, believe me I’ve seen it, and it’s called Bring Me The Horizon. But, believe me that’s where the jokes end. Fashioncore, you know the score right? Well, maybe not. People expect me to poke fun at Bring Me The Horizon, maybe make a few “I didn’t know this band consists of women” jokes, and generally rip the piss out of them. Prepare to be disappointed though, because a bad album, TIAHBMISITIAHLKIAS (wow, abbreviating the stupidly long title, makes it look even more stupid) is not.
I’m always objective. Let’s get one thing straight, I don’t hate bands, I hate shit music. There is a difference. I saw Bring Me The Horizon live about 4 or 5 years ago, and they were shit. Their music was shit. Therefore, I mocked them. The band, however, have undoubtedly grown since then.
So without further ado, I present my review of Bring Me The Horizon’s latest offering, There is a Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There is a Heaven, Let’s Keep it a Secret.
Bring Me The Horizon – There is a Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen it. There is a Heaven, Let’s Keep it a Secret.
5 years ago, BMTH burst onto the scene with a horrendous generic Deathcore album, and gained much attention and fame for their dismal effort. Why, you might wonder. One reason is their confidence, fashionable “emo/scene” image and the fact they were easy to market to teenage boys and girls. A couple of years ago, the band released their second album, Suicide Season. The band switched up their sound a lot more, experimenting more, and overall this was a much greater album than the first. Now, with their third album, Bring Me The Horizon push things even further and present their best album yet. The fact that the first album was about 35 minutes, the second was 42 minutes, and this one is 52 minutes, should show how the band have become more ambitious.
First things first, the album sleeve and overall artwork is very nice indeed. No complaints there, it fits the theme of the album very well. Secondly, the album is called *deep breath* There is a Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen it. There is a Heaven, Let’s Keep it a Secret. Could they come up with a longer fucking title? Seriously, what a stupid title. At least the music is good though.
Album opener, Crucify Me, is incredible. It’s only the first song, and it’s already topped anything the band have previously done. After a nice clean guitar intro, the song blasts in before a barrage of screams accompany the music. It’s heavy, but it’s undeniably catchy, especially the chorus guitar riffs. Keyboards are prevalent on the song, and beautiful female vocals singing the album’s title repeat throughout the track. The female vocals get fucked up with effects, which to be honest, people will either love or hate. The song ends with an acoustic outro, with more female vocals. It’s a perfect end to the song.
Crucify Me is not the only song to feature guest musicians. Throughout the album there are a lot of sung vocals, done by guests. These sound great and all, although it’s blatantly obvious they are there, because BMTH vocalist Oli Sykes can’t actually sing. In fact, he’s still the weakest part of the band. In his defence, maybe he’s heavily involved in the writing of the music, but in terms of his vocals, I’m still not overly fond of them. That said, lyrically, Oli is at his best on this album, even if his love for the word ‘fuck’ surpasses Roman Polanski’s love for 13 year old girls.
First single, It Never Ends, is another great song on the album, and again, one of the best of the band’s careers. Beginning with a ridiculously pretentious spoken word electro-synth introduction, almost rivalling Linkin Park for silliness (although at least the band didn’t have the audacity to try and call it a separate song), the song soon explodes into the main segment. Starting with deafening riffage over flourishing strings, before entering the verse, this proves to be the strongest ever of the band’s singles. More female vocals are used before a fantastic chorus screamed by Oli Sykes.
The beautifully titled ‘Fuck’, is another catchy song, that could easily be a single. The chorus is sung by another guest, Josh Franceschi from You Me At Six. It’s a good song, but the song does feel a little too clichéd, at least the chorus melody. The song is also obviously called Fuck, because the band want to look cool and edgy. I mean, seriously, couldn’t they come up with a better name, maybe something a little more subtle? Limp Bizkit have a song with about 56 fucks in the lyrics, but even a band as silly as them came up with a much subtler title. And a song with 56 fucks is much more worthy of being titled ‘fuck’, than this song. Oli doesn’t even say fuck that much in the song, apart from at one point when he screams “fuck! fuck! fuck!” – presumably because he had forgotten the lyrics.
Next track, Don’t Go, is again fantastic, possibly even being one of the greatest on the album. The violins, and soft opening guitar lines to the track are great. Oli’s introspective vocals hit hard, and the female singing (yep, more) from Lights, blends perfectly. The song builds to a fantastic climax, before fading out to Lights singing “don’t go”.
Sixth track, Home Sweet Hole, is instrumentally soft during the verse, but Oli is screaming over the top. It actually works well and the chorus is pretty catchy. I’m not too much of a fan of the gang sung chants of “home sweet hole” though. They sound like Lostprophets or The Blackout in those spots. Still, the song is good regardless of a couple little faults.
If Suicide Season was the band finding their own sound, this is the band taking their sound and pushing it into new directions and darker territory. Everything is also far more accomplished this time, musically being superior to anything the band has done in the past. Some songs are still straight forward heavy anthems, whilst others are experimental opus’s that push the envelope and counteract the aggression. Alligator Blood, Visions, and Blacklist are undoubtedly heavy, but by the tenth track (and instrumental), Memorial, things really slow down a bit.
Memorial is a soft, and there is a prominent tone of sadness throughout. The track is strong, mixing programmed drums, electro beats, keyboards and all the usual crap I would normally be very cynical about, but in this case, it’s a fitting introduction to the eleventh track, Blessed With a Curse.
Blessed With a Curse is fantastic, combining elements that have been evident throughout the album, to make a perfect closer to the album. The weird thing though, is it’s not the album closer, it sure sounds like one, but maybe that’s me being weird. The twelfth and final track, The Fox and the Wolf, is the final track, being a 1 minute and 43 second of thunderous aggression. It seems weird ending the album with a short, aggressive song, but regardless, the journey from start to finish on this album has actually been great.
Final Verdict: A very strong album from Metal purists’ greatest enemy.
8/10
