The Dillinger Escape Plan
Ire works

THE REVIEW

"Miss machine" represented a shift towards more experimental shores (even though the previous EP had already given us numerous glimpses of this), but no one ever expected an album like "Ire works."

Many expected an album in the classic ultra-technical and ultra-fast math core style. Instead, the boys delivered a Mathcore album, but one rich in influences that I'll now explain to you. When the CD came out, I didn't immediately place it in the player because I was afraid of being disappointed given my numerous expectations. When I finally decided to listen to it, here's what happened.

Ready? Go!

The opener "Fix Your Face" is very much in the classic style for those who already know these guys; the track showcases both the technical qualities and the sound wall of this group. The second track "Lurch," in terms of songwriting, is truly astonishing and very "progressive-oriented." For those who have seen them live, they know the DEP can faithfully reproduce the tracks even while moving like madmen, leaving the audience in awe, truly. Returning to the album, there are definitely tracks in the classic DEP style, but as you go through the tracks, something happens that leaves us nothing short of amazed. Here we are at the third track, and this is what I wanted to get to. The track in question is called "Black Bubblegum" and it's a somewhat unusual piece for DEP, essentially a pop-rock track with industrial shades. It's here that you see the genius of this group, namely being able to blend a difficult genre like MathCore with practically everything. One of the greatest masterpieces of genius is the next "Sick on Sunday," a truly stratospheric piece that mixes electronics in pure Aphex Twin style with insane distorted guitars. After a very suggestive interlude, we have another piece in pure MathCore style, very similar to the tracks of the previous album, "Miss Machine," called "Nong Eye Gong," where again, the songwriting is excellent, especially the bridge of the song is very well done. "When Acting as a Wave" is another electronic interlude with very industrial shades that truly leaves us speechless and stunned, until it reaches "83588," a beautiful and very heavy track that at the end flows into the most classic jazz. We come to one of the most representative pieces, surely "Milk Lizard," a very pop piece but also very rock n' roll where you can even hear a piano and trumpets; it’s truly absurd, as absurd as the video made for the piece. After this, we have another more classically math piece which is "Party Smasher," very well-structured but also somewhat "filling" compared to the others. "Dead as History" is another gem; here we are very into Industrial Rock/Metal territory, this track is really beautiful and especially capable of evoking a very nocturnal and suggestive atmosphere. We are almost at the end with "Horse Hunter," a Math Core piece that at the end leads into a truly engaging melodic chorus that stays in your mind. And here we are at the end, with one of the best endings an album can have, in my opinion, and that is "Mouth of Ghost," a purely jazz track through and through where the piano is literally carried by the magnificent drumming. A truly magnificent track, one of the best of the album without a doubt, which at the end, just to change things up, changes its face completely.

In summary, an almost perfect album! You hear electronics, then pop rock, industrial, mathcore again, and with the last track even jazz. These guys have not allowed themselves to be really limited by anything; the impression is precisely that DEP have put into this album everything they wanted. If in the previous album, more space was left for heaviness rather than experimentation, here the opposite happens and all of this is fantastic. Genius riffs, elements of electronic music (in Milk Lizard, you can even hear trumpets) full jazz-style drumming (the drummer has changed) blended divinely as only they could do. The credit, in my opinion, goes to the previous EP with Mike Patton (even before Miss Machine) where, in my opinion, Mike had a great influence on DEP especially regarding the electronic parts. In fact, we also have a track in full Aphex Twin style that leaves us truly amazed. Mike Patton, in my opinion, had a great influence on them, with Calculating Infinity (the first album still in classic math style), they were still stuck to pure metalcore without venturing too much, it is with "Irony is a dead scene" that experimentation is instead given free rein. Surely in my opinion one of the best releases of 2007 for one of the most innovative bands of recent years that surely at the level of genius can keep company with bands like Tool or Mastodon, even if infinitely different from the latter.

My advice is to listen to this album calmly and numerous times; only then will you be able to fully appreciate it because it certainly isn't easy to assimilate. These young guys are without a doubt among the best proposals of recent years. I don't want to imagine what they will propose with a possible new album, but it certainly won't be something for purists of the genre. This album is, yes, experimental, but at the same time, it is damn True!