Review Summary: Oh no.
Change is necessary for a musical artist. It's good for an established band or singer to let their sound evolve over the years, as just doing the same thing over and over would soon become bland and uninteresting. Bring Me The Horizon is no stranger to change over the past seven or eight years. They went from being a deathcore band, being a metalcore band, and then to being a sort of hybrid between synth-driven hard rock and metalcore. They made these changes over time and continued to be a talented and enjoyable band. While it could have worked for them to stick with a sound that has proven to work for them, Bring Me The Horizon decided to try something new.
Only this time, it didn't exactly work out.
This time around, Bring Me The Horizon attempted to craft a more radio-friendly modern rock sound with influences of pop. There were certainly some glimmers of brilliance on 'That's The Spirit,' but for the most part, the album is generic, boring, and a surprising step back for the band.
But let's check out some of the album's good parts.
First of all, this album has what might possibly be Bring Me The Horizon's best opening track, 'Doomed.' It's a creepy and emotional track that features some astounding vocal work from lead singer Oli Sykes. The first three singles from this album, 'Happy Song,' 'Throne,' and 'Drown,' are all relatively enjoyable tracks as well. Sure, you could argue that 'Throne' sounds too much like cheap rip-off of Linkin Park, but the song is catchy and memorable regardless. One of the only ventures into completely new territory that actually paid off for Bring Me The Horizon is the heartfelt ballad, 'Follow You.' Yet again, the song features excellent vocal work from Sykes and is driven by a catchy chorus and solid synth work.
However, not every expedition into new territory pays off for the band. For example, take the overly poppy closing track, 'Oh No.' Not only does the song feel overproduced, but the annoying "woahs" in the chorus topped off a laughable saxophone solo (that's right, a saxophone solo in a Bring Me The Horizon song) makes this one of the worst tracks the band has ever released. In fact, while quite a few songs from the album are enjoyable, none of them (except for 'Doomed') are excellent in any way. The best songs from 'That's The Spirit' are rarely anything more than catchy, which isn't a good thing.
One of the album's biggest issues is that it is very front-loaded. Out of the five passable songs off this album, four of them are located in the first half. Unfortunately, this leads to the listener quickly losing interest as the album progresses, and by the time 'That's The Spirit' reaches its anticlimactic conclusion, there's little reason to listen again. Overall, the album can't help but feel overwhelmingly generic. For example, 'Avalanche' and 'True Friends' both feature awkward attempts at being radio-friendly. The reality of it is that both of these songs are poorly written, cheesy, and gimmicky in the sense that 'Avalanche' over-relies on synths and 'True Friends' over-relies on strings. A couple songs are just plain boring and forgettable, such as 'Run' and 'Blasphemy.' In fact, these are probably the two worst tracks on the album due to their uninspired and repetitive natures.
Bring Me The Horizon proved with 'Sempiternal' that they're more than capable of changing up their sound but still producing a solid album. Sadly, they couldn't do it again, and 'That's The Spirit' turned out to be a big disappointment. Bring Me The Horizon is undeniably a talented band, but their shift into more radio-friendly a poppy rock music was a failure.
