CD Reviews

Dillinger Escape Plan

Ire Works | Relapse

By PATRICK CATES | November 27, 2007

2.5 Stars

Dillinger Escape Plan are scientists. Spanning 10 years, their distinguished research project has tried to answer the question “How many different time signatures and timbres of guitar brutality can be squeezed into a single song?” Their latest study, a tightly organized half hour of violent, variegated cacophony, tests a raft of new hypotheses. Into how many seconds can you reasonably compress a horror-film soundtrack (“When Acting As a Particle”)? What is the most unsettling riff that can be played on a guitar (“Nong Eye Gong”)? The only flaw in their methodology is Greg Puciato’s Jekyll-and-Hyde vocalizing. When he tears apart his larynx with staccato shouts and screams (“82588”), he’s part of the program. But when he resorts to melody during the subtler passages (“Black Bubblegum”), he stands apart from the music like a pompous, posturing nü-metaller. Ire Works is good science tarnished slightly by one bad experiment.

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