Bring Me The Horizon

There Is A Hell Believe Me I've Seen It There Is A Heaven Let's Keep It A Secret (2010)

Lysdexia

Time to come clean. I like this band. Well, sorta. I found an extremely guilty pleasure in Bring Me The Horizon's last album, Suicide Season. It was full of crunchy goodness and music that would piss off my parents. The cover art was also offensive enough to make people not want to ask what I was listening to when they glanced at my iPod. Ah, youth. Now the band has offered up a new album, with a title long enough to make me not bother typing it out here. With a title like that, it's safe to assume that nothing on this album is concise.

And that's exactly the truth. Nothing on this album is, in any capacity, a "short song." Even the songs that come in at around three minutes or less feel long. Starting at the top of the list, I knew I was in for a long haul when the first song ("Crucify Me") was over six minutes long. I thought "maybe it will seem shorter." No. Absolutely wrong. That song felt like the longest six minutes of my life and I couldn't wait for it to be over. Maybe it was the choir singing, maybe it was the constant repetition of "There is a hell, believe me, I've seen it / There is a heaven / Let's keep it a secret." All I knew is that I almost quit right there.

After repeated listens to this album, the songs have all blended into one song. One 50-minute song that feels like it's never going to end. Whereas other bands have the common sense to end a song to keep it short and sweet, these guys are the Peter Jackson of metalcore acts. I keep listening and thinking that a song could have ended right there and it would be so much better for it, but no. The songs have a tendency to fade out, and come right back in as if to say, "Hey! Don't try and listen to anything else! I'm still here!" The song "Anthem" is five minutes of music that could have been over three times before it actually finishes. It doesn't get much better as the album goes on. Each song feels the same in that there's a lot of repetition and it never ends. "It Never Ends," coincidentally, is the title of track three, as if this band were trying to tell me something.

In the end, fans of Bring Me the Horizon will like the music. As I'm not an intense fan, I'm not too pleased with this effort. These guys obviously have a huge fanbase for a reason and they're putting out music that they like to play and that I guess they like. However, I'd like to point something out: There is a hell, listen to this, you'll see it. There's better music out there, it's not a secret.