Review Summary: Sempiternal 2.5
Bring Me The Horizon have a knack for frustrating people. Since their unplanned conception in 2003 they’ve been treated as the bastards of metal- the child that we pretend doesn’t exist in the family. To some, they deserve their controversy due to front-man Oli Sykes’ cocky persona both on and off stage. To others they are overlooked despite creating stadium anthems and rising to undeniably enormous popularity. Through this maelstrom of conflicting convictions they have sailed for 12 years, releasing 5 albums in their path.
The stakes are high for the Sheffield quintet with their 5th album “That’s The Spirit”. In 2013 their previous album, “Sempiternal”, was recognized as a career best and now they have to follow it. Yet Sempternal divided Bring Me The Horizon’s fans due to the more prominent use of electronics and cleaner, more understandable, singing. As mentioned, they are good at frustrating people- even if it’s their fans... It gave them a whole new sound, fan base and maturity at the cost of abandoning their uncontrolled song structures and incomprehensible lyrics. In hindsight, perhaps that change was actually for the best?
There are still moments of unabashed chaos within “That’s The Spirit” to please the ‘old’ fans. After the cheerleading intro (that pays homage to Faith No More’s ‘Be Aggressive’), ‘Happy Song’ sees Lee Malia burst out of the synth with an animated riff. It stamps alongside Matt Nicholl’s roaring drums however these melodies are shrunk behind the clearly centralized vocals. Oli Sykes does use his voice to positively escalate moments of madness. A chugging riff, hasty electronics and Oli’s screams, albeit technically altered, expand to form a complimentary cacophony of noise that makes the chorus in ‘Throne’ one of the biggest the band have ever written. In fact, nearly every song on “That’s The Spirit” features some form of vocal hook. Unfortunately as the album progresses, each hook loses its edge due to the unaltered song structure throughout the album. The chorus in ‘Avalanche’ therefore becomes a placebo effect as we’ve already heard enough of the same mathematical approach of: (riff + melody + chorus + melody)*bouncy electronics.
Electronics have become a huge part of the Bring Me Horizon sound. They are present in every song and it’s fair to say that they’ve now become a pop-influenced metal band. ‘Doomed’, ‘True Friends’ and ‘Blasphemy’ each include further electronics that already play an integral part to the album. It’s a good way to increase atmosphere however the synth sounds totally insipid flanking bland lyrics such as “don’t come crawl back to me when you breakdown because you dug this hole all by yourself...” (‘What You Need’). It’s a sonic resemblance of the emotions a teenage couple feel if they break up over text after a month.
Bring Me The Horizon have blindly stepped out of their comfort zone and in their blindness they have focused on their electronics rather than traditional talent. These songs would sound not only massive, but also more professional if the instrumental mixing was seamlessly assembled. But then, they did spend unspent production money on a personal trainer and relied on their very own Mr. Fish to produce it.
