Band : Bring Me The Horizon
Album title : Suicide Season
Label : Visible Noise
Distributor : Bonvon Promotion - Bertus
Release date : 29/09/2008
Release : CD

From Sheffield in Yorkshire (UK), Bring Me The Horizon is an act formed in March 2004 by members from several bands within the local scene, taking their bandname from the sentence "Now...Bring Me That Horizon!" shouted by Captain Jack Sparrows in the movie Pirates Of The Caribbean. They've incorporated elements of Death Metal and Metalcore in their music, which has caused the band to be described as Deathcore, but originally the boys took their influences from the likes of US Metalcore heroes Norma Jean, The Red Chord, and more of that ilk, and shows played with Zao, The Nothing, Shaped By Fate and Johnny Tuant helped the fivesome to get a rabid fanbase. No need telling you that people in the music business started turning their heads!

The quintet (consisting of singer Oliver "Oli" Sykes, guitarists Lee Mahia & Curtis Ward, bassist Matt Kean, and drummer Matt Nicholls) got a deal with new British label Thirty Days Of Night Records (becoming the first band to get signed to the label) for the October 2005 release of their 4-track debut EP This Is What The Edge Of Your Seat Was Made For, which revealeded a very raw Metalcore act in a Botch vein. The band was almost immediately swiped up by Visible Noise, who re-released the EP in January 2006. Tours with The Red Chord, Aiden, and Bleeding Through followed. In June '06, the band appeared at the Download festival in Castle Donington. The band's debut full-length Count Your Blessings was released in October 2006, and followed up by a tour with Killswitch Engage and The Haunted in January 2007 following a tour with Lostprophets. Early 2007, the band was nominated for and won the Kerrang! Award in the category of "best British Newcomer Band". During March & April, they did a headline tour of the UK with I Killed The Prom Queen (now defunct) as support. The band, or rather its frontman, made frontline news in the newspapers when Sykes was claimed to have urinated on a female fan when the alledged victim refused his sexual advances after a Nothingham gig. Charges were eventually dropped due to lack of evidence, but only after the singer appeared in court twice. During June the band again appeared at Download, and in August the band's debut album was released throughout North America through Earache Records (a 2008 re-issue of the album exclusive to Hot Topic stores in the US added a cover of Slipknot's "Eyeless" and a video for "Pray For Plagues" as bonus features), and in November the band hooked up with Gigantour to play three shows on the Australian  leg of the festival tour. In January BMTH hooked up with fellow countrymen Architects for a European tour...and during a bored moment on that tour they guys staged a "fight" between Oli and Architects singer Sam Carter (something I already spoke about in the Architects review posted 06/08/2008). The band would return to Australia, during May/ June 2008, appearing on I Killed The Prom Queen's final tour. June saw the band appear at several important European festivals (Vainstream Fest in Germany, Graspop Metal Meeting in Belgium, and the free Etnika Eastpack in Italy) before jumping onto the Vans Warped Tour in the US.

The new album was recorded at the Studio Fredman in the remote Swedish town of Arboga, with Fredrik Nordstrom as producer. What with the album arriving at the Concrete Web offices more than a month after its actual release, yours truly already found some clipping in the press, which have appeared to be somewhat contradictory. On the one side you've got this guy (no names, eh!) who feels the band in jumpin' on the Metalcore bandwagon just to be in on the hype around that genre, and therefore totally deviating from the Deathcore beginnings of the band...using this as a means to be negative and slag down the album to a rating of a mere 40/100! On the other side you'll find journalists felicitating the band for having grown as musicians and songwriters, bringing us material with enticing (complex) build-up and unexpected turns...even Rocking and grooving at times...and applauding Oli's initiative to bring less screamed vocals, thus creating a more accessive sound overall for the album.

Personally, I have no history with the band, and can therefore only talk about what I hear right now! So, expect ultra-fast drumming (enhanced with trigger effects, for sure), expressive bass, down-tuned guitars which occasionally chant in a higher octave, the use of electronic effects (courtesy of Luis Dubuc from The Secret Handshake) during "Chelsea Smile", Sam Carter bringing a guest vocal performance to "The Sadness Will Never End", Deez Nuts' JJ Peters doing the same on "Football Season Is Over", Oli expressing his anger about the Nothingham affair in the short "No Need For Introductions, I've Read About Girls Like You On The Back Of Toilet Doors" which is preceded by a sample of some soft Jazz Lounge act (just piano, upright bass and shuffle drums). If you would take one word on advise, it's to give the album a first listen through headphones, because there you'll hear all the nuances much better! I made the mistake to give the album a first listen over the stereo chain, and it seemed to me the guys were trying to make as much noise possible...sophisticated noise, but noise nevertheless! The headphone session completely changed that initial appreciation of the material...to the point that I can now actually recognize and appreciate it also on the stereo, see! When searching for the band's MySpace page I found a couple of fan sites, but not the one which the label mentions. Anyways, you can find full length versions of 6 of the album's tracks at myspace.com/bmth702, an additional one at myspace.com/fansbmth (where 2 older songs are also posted; more older material – stuff I didn't have time to get into, I'm affraid can be found at other sites with the slightest bit of effort).

End conclusion? I'm definitely on the positive side of the band, although not yet willing to put the album in my year-lists. What with the album having arrived at the Concrete Web offices somewhat late, the band just finished a headliner tour in Europe with The Red Shore and Deez Nuts. Adding The Secret Handshake, the tour continues in the UK starting October 16, running 'til Nov. 3 for a total of 19 gigs, after which the boys set sail to the US for a headliner tour with support from Misery Signals, The Ghost Inside and Johnny Truant with dates running up to December 14 (for more detailed info on the places and venues the guys will be passing by, see the band's MySpace page).

92/100

Tony.