Ire Works

Without a doubt, anyone reading about the Dillinger Escape Plan circa 2007 will see plenty of variations on the most famous old Nietzsche maxim: Because all that hasn’t killed this New Jersey quintet-namely a legacy of label/contractual problems and the gradual drop-off of all but one original member-has certainly made them stronger. But despite Dillinger’s internal dings-the worse of which came this year when co-founder, primary songwriter and world-class drummer Chris Pennie defected to Coheed And Cambria-they’ve also been getting hit from outside. After perfecting contemporary math-metal with 1999’s Calculating Infinity, Dillinger waited five years to release a proper follow-up. While they added big melodies and sleek industrial rock to their technical, violent core with 2004’s Miss Machine, the bands they’d influenced were going more technical, more violent and more Dillinger than the masters. Whatever they were gonna do next had to be huge, and it had to come sooner, before the next batch of copycats uploaded more Dillinger riffs to YouTube or turned the band’s glory days into Guitar Hero charts.

Thankfully, Ire Works proves this band’s best work arises from the shittiest of situations. Where Miss Machine emphasized melody and groove to the detriment of tech-metal fury (brutal as they were, the album’s fastest songs all worked similar rhythmic angles), Ire Works finds Dillinger upping their game in both areas. The album-opening one-two punch of “Fix Your Face” (featuring long-departed original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis) and “Lurch” plays up new drummer Gil Sharone’s (of cabaret-metal act Stolen Babies) strengths-mainly the ability to groove and swing while tearing through asymmetric meters at 9,000 bpm-as much as it shows guitarist and lone original member Ben Weinman is now Dillinger’s key songwriter. Weinman’s licks and riffs corkscrew out of the speakers, cut against the beat as much as they drive it, and lay down thick melodic foundations over which vocalist Greg Puciato can shred his tonsils. Likewise, in the robotic white-boy soul of “Black Bubblegum” (imagine the Blood Brothers backing Gnarls Barkley), the dizzying, glitch-driven electronics of “Sick On Sunday” and the pummeling swing of “Milk Lizard” (which features a goddamned horn section), Weinman’s skill as arranger and genre chameleon make otherwise incongruous tunes sound like part of Dillinger’s DNA.

The album isn’t perfect: Awesomely chopped-up and atonal as they are, “When Acting As A Particle” and “When Acting As A Wave” follow Dillinger’s pattern of padding discs with segues when they’re better at writing songs; and the Nine Inch Nails-esque dirge “Dead As History” ironically sets back Ire Works’ last half by not being melodic enough. But in an album where the masters reconfigure their template, challenge their career best and add muscle fans probably didn’t even realize they needed (the set-closing “Mouth Of Ghosts” is practically a drum clinic for Sharone’s immense, funk/soul/ska-informed vocabulary), a few off moments barely hurt the momentum. In other words, wannabes, it’s time to up your game: The Dillinger Escape Plan are far from dead, and the sound they pioneered is only getting stronger.

ROCKS LIKE:
The Dillinger Escape Plan With Mike Patton’s Irony Is A Dead Scene EP
The Blood Brothers’ Young Machetes
Nine Inch Nails’ Year Zero

TRACK LISTING:
1. Fix Your Face
2. Lurch
3. Black Bubblegum
4. Sick On Sunday
5. When Acting As A Particle
6. Nong Eye Gong
7. When Acting As A Wave
8. 82588
9. Milk Lizard
10. Party Smasher
11. Dead As History
12. Horse Hunter
13. Mouth Of Ghosts
 

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