The Dillinger Escape Plan- Miss Machine

Mon 14th Mar, 2005 in Music Reviews

It is no secret that I love this band. While the debut album Calculating Infinity was also a great release, as was the collaboration with Mike Patton for the Irony is a Dead Scene EP, this, Dillinger Escape Plan’s second album, is what made me a huge fan and was hands-down, one of my favourite albums of last year. Therefore, I will try to impart upon you the magic, the miracle that is Miss Machine.

Prior to the making of this album, Dillinger underwent a line-up change, with vocalist Greg Puciato taking over the reins from Dimitri Minakakis. And he is one scary mofo, make no mistake.

Panasonic Youth kicks off proceedings with an urgency and brutality that is hard to beat. Brian Benoit and Benjamin Weinman’s guitars alternate between grinding thrash and menacing clarity, while bassist Liam Wilson’s bass provides an eerie backdrop and Chris Pennie bashes the drums like a man possessed.

Sunshine the Werewolf has one of the best endings on the album with Puciato screaming “without my existence you are nothing” with hair-raising sincerity.

Highway Robbery is also one of the best songs off the album, with its wall-of-sound being interrupted by a pretty little guitar break before the song re-emerges as the fine piece of metalcore that it started out as.

Van Damsel is really difficult to listen to, with its disorientating stop-start music and absolute mayhem. It’s almost too much. Almost. Puciato’s roars reach a whole new level as he screams, “she took my hand but I never took hers” at the end of the song.

But things aren’t all metalcore on this album. A good example is Phone Home, with its decipherable lyrics and stripped-back music of its verses. The warped strings on this song are a nice, if slightly disturbing, touch.  Sure, the choruses return to the shouted, chaotic affairs that one comes to expect from Dillinger, but overall it is a bit quieter in delivery.

Another fantastic track is Setting Fire To Sleeping Giants were Puciato actually sings the verses and strangely this sounds almost as menacing as when he screams. However, as the song goes on, we are introduced to choruses that sound almost jovial although the lyrics are “the stranger’s candy takes you where you ought to be, in broken alleys in the back of every street”.

Baby’s First Coffin returns to the brutal formula, albeit with tiny moments of respite provided by minimalist guitar and sung/spoken lyrics. This adds to the effectiveness of the otherwise raucous, walloping noise that makes up the rest of the song.

Unretrofied is the calm within the storm. Puciato sings the chorus in a way that is a total departure from the rest of the album. Sincere, surprising and welcome, it is probably the only real consistently down-tempo song off the album.

The Dillinger Escape Plan don’t do themselves any favours with their brand of unapologetic brutality. What I mean is that if you don’t like this kind of music to begin with, you sure as hell won’t be converted when you listen to this album. However, if you love your metalcore, or music that is as disturbing as it is impacting, this album is a dream.