The Dillinger Escape Plan Album: “Miss Machine”

I must be hearing a totally different album than a lot of the one and two star reviewers. Yes, there are melodic hooks on "Highway Robbery" and "Setting Fire To Sleeping Giants," and yes, "Phone Home" and "Unretrofied" sound like slowed down industrial rock, but the rest of the album is classic Dillinger Escape Plan. In fact, the remaining songs are more complex and chaotic than anything on Calculating Infinity. The guitarists do fewer scales and more subtle, complicated techniques this time around,and the drumming is as good as ever. And the so called "sell-out" songs add variety and make the album feel more like an album as opposed to a collection of random spaz outs. Just because there's (gasp!) singing, doesn't make an album worthless. I seriously doubt that anybody listens to JUST hardcore metal, and that the same people who pan Dillinger Escape Plan as weak enjoy melodic singing in other contexts. In some cases, I'll agree that singing doesn't fit in metalcore, but here, it's done perfectly and works to make the whole record more dynamic. In short, this is one of the most complete, enjoyable metalcore albums ever by a band that is endlessly inventive and even better live.

Since the Dillinger Escape Plan inhabit a genre all to themselves, it's hardly surprising that Miss Machine isn't a huge leap forward from their last album, Calculating Infinity, despite the five-year gap. So any criticism that the band is merely producing 'more of the same' is pretty redundant.

In fact, Miss Machine does differ from its predecessor in many subtle ways: 'new' singer Greg Puciato has more of an accent to his screams than those of Dimitri Minakakis; the sound is no longer as harsh and relentless as it was on slices of mayhem like The Mullet Burden (from the Under the Running Board EP); and the influence of Mike Patton, as evident on their collaboratory EP Irony is a Dead Scene from a couple of years ago, has been to their creative advantage.

But differences aside, the DEP retain their title as the tightest metal band playing today, their trademark hairpin time changes as surprising and dizzying as ever. (Of course the best way to experience this is live - they have to be seen to be believed.) With Miss Machine, the Dillinger Escape Plan have confounded the sceptics and raised the bar just that little bit higher; just enough to prove they're still the leaders, not followers.

(On a side note, fellow reviewer 'iobrien' misses the point when he/she dismisses the record. Screaming is integral to this genre of music; to write off the DEP for that is kind of like saying Beethoven's music is rubbish because there are too many violins.)

Will The Dillinger Escape Plan ever cease to amaze? I believe the answer is obvious. Clearly, Miss Machine is unlike their previous releases. I find that to be extremely attractive. Would you rather listen to some sh*t band like Slipknot, and have everyone of their albums sounding the same? and their songs.... pshhhhhhhhhhh. dont get me started. It is extremely heathly for a band to experiment. True, Calculating Infinity was a landmark. When that album hit the shelves, I had never heard anything like that album. Nothing has changed since then.

I like Greg more than Dimitri, and not because the man has arms the size of my f***ing legs. He adds melody, and I think the bands feeds very well off of it. On this album they do crazier stuff than material off of Calculating Infinity, track one, "panasonic youth" case in point. Proving they still are the most talented group of musicians I've ever heard. What's great about this album is when they break into jazzy breaks, they dont have barking, they actually have singing! Case in point, listen to track nine, "babies first coffin".

This album surprised me in a way i can't put into words. i saw these guys live (back in august at the Fireside Bowl in Chicago) right after they put out "Miss Machine", and I'm seeing them again in October in MN. i can't wait. the only way to experience this band fully, is to see them live. a force that you can't put into words. the first words i uttered after the preformance when my shirt was drenched in sweat was, "That was better than Sex".

Dr. :]

I had never heard of The Dillinger Escape Plan before I got this album but I had read some very good reviews about them and I also learned they had collaborated on their previous EP with Mike Patton. So I picked this album not knowing what to expect. My first impression : this album is amazing! This is one of the most complex albums I have ever heard and gives a new meaning to the term Mathcore. While not necessarily hardcore music, The Dillinger have it all in their music. The Faith No More influences are there, especially in the vocals section but worry not, The Dillinger Escape Plan are very original to go off ripping other bands. The album is pretty short in length but each of the songs is so full of ideas that every one of them seems so complete. Give this album a try, since words cannot describe the perfection that lies in it. The Dillinger Escape Plan are leading music to the future!

If you have any appreciation at all for musical technicality, you will at least appreciate this album, if not love it completely. While the genre is notoriously hard to pin down, and its probably not worth worrying about, elements of hardcore, metal, grind, industrial, alt-rock, latin, and jazz can be identified at one point or another. In general this album isnt as frantic and insane as "Calculating Infinity", and Gregs voice is a throatier roar than Dmitri's anguished screams. That being said, if you liked "Calculating Infinity" you will not be dissapointed by songs like "Panasonic Youth", "Van Damsel", and "The perfect design". All of which churn out DEP's patented furiously jarring riffs at 100 mph. On the other side you have tracks like "Phone Home", a seethingly spiteful NIN-esque industrial/metal track thats slow pace belies a horrifyingly heavy bridge at the end. Perhaps the most out of place (but still enjoyable) songs on the album are "Setting fire to sleeping giants" which sounds halfway between Ricky Martin and the furious mathcore DEP is normally known for, and "Unretrofied" which contains melodies and harmonies not unfamilier to listeners of "Top 40" radio stations. The take home message here is that the Dillinger Escape Plan has branched out, and like it or not, this is the face of hard music to come.