The Bloody Classics - Bring Me the Horizon

Bring Me The Horizon, Suicide Season, 2008, Visible Noise

Track List

1. The Comedown

2. Chelsea Smile

3. It Was Written in Blood

4. Death Breath

5. Football Season Is Over

6. Sleep with One Eye Open

7. Diamonds Aren't Forever

8. The Sadness Will Never End

9. No Need for Introductions, I've Read About Girls Like You on the Backs of Toilet Doors

10. Suicide Season

Bring Me The Horizon are from Sheffield in the north of England. Singer Oliver Sykes, Guitarist Lee Malia, drummer Matt Nicholls, Matt Kean on bass and Curtis Ward on rhythm guitar got together in 2004 and Suicide Season was their second studio album. Their name comes from a line in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. They were initially influenced by death metal and cite bands such as Metallica, Pantera, Norma Jean and Skycamefalling as being important to them. Their style on this album is metalcore but there is quite a lot of experimentation with creating sound digitally and though it represents a change in style from their first album, it is still very different from the more mainstream sound that they are now known for.

The Comedown which was the first single release is very shouty, almost to the point of not being able to hear the vocal, but the guitars are very tight and the dubstep drumbeat is unexpected and welcome. If you’ve only ever heard the band’s more recent work, you are going to have to recalibrate your expectations here. The lyrics of second single Chelsea Smile are dark but cool and a bit easier to discern, the melody even gets a bit euphoric in the middle. It Was Written in Blood feels comparatively gentle (it isn’t, it’s just that you can actually hear all the lyrics) Again, the guitars shine. The drums give Death Breath a strong start. Party song Football Season Is Over sounds like a harder Andrew W.K. It’s the best track so far. Sleep with One Eye Open is the angriest track, written about a broken friendship, it features the lyric; “If I had it my way I'd slit your throat with the knife that you left in my back” which says it all, really. Diamonds Aren't Forever feels repetitive and is a weak point. The Sadness Will Never End is the album’s most accessible track (the obvious single) and probably the most recognisable to fans of the band’s later work. It’s reminiscent of Funeral for a Friend. Title track Suicide Season has an uplifting melody despite its dark lyrical content. It feels like a strong (if perhaps overly long at 8 minutes) ending to the album.

To me this feels like a very heavy album, but then this isn’t my genre of choice. I have to say I enjoyed it a lot though. It might be because I am in a bad mood from being quarantined for so long, but I appreciated the opportunity to scream into the void with it. It’s also so obviously transitional, you can hear the band starting to incorporate different musical styles to diversify their sound and I felt that it was lyrically very strong (although clearly a lot of reviewers at the time didn’t share this opinion). It’s also very much worth listening to if you’ve only heard the band’s more recent stuff as it shows how far they’ve come. I first heard Bring Me The Horizon on 2015’s That’s The Spirit and this honestly sounds like a completely different band to the one that is now successfully making poppyier emo rock. It may seem as if this earlier era of their music has been forgotten about by the band themselves, but it influenced other metalcore bands including; Asking Alexandria, The Ghost Inside, While She Sleeps and Architects

So if like me, you’re angry at all the people who can’t just STAY AT HOME, blast these guys out of your windows at a safe distance from everyone else.