Kingcrimsonprog What makes a good live video? Is it the camera crew? Is it the sound guy? Is it the editor? Does the track-listing have anything to do with it? Is it capturing a significant event in the band’s history? How much do the extras live video screens and pyro count? In the end, is all that matters the performance from the group?

I bring this up, because I have very mixed feelings about British Metalcore band, Bring Me The Horizon’s Live At Wembley Blu Ray.

Lets run down the list shall we? The camera work is superb. I watch a lot of live videos and this one is no disappointment. The sound is really clear, they have faithfully captured what was played on the night (more on that later). The band play a great track listing here, with material from all their studio albums to date, including not only hits but deep cuts and mixing the screeching and blast beats of the early days with the melody and keys of their smash hit Sempiternal album and some of their greatest material from their best two albums in between. The film captures the band headlining London’s historic Wembley Stadium and as singer Olly Sykes points out on stage this was their biggest show to date and a real crowning achievement for the band. It certainly isn’t visually dull and the band put a lot of effort into videos and artwork and steam cannons. There’s a lot of stuff going on to keep up your interest. Basically, if you take all this into account, this is on paper an absolutely brilliant release and an utter must have for fans of the band.

However; and this is a big however. It isn’t a very good concert. I like this band on record. I saw them live and it was very patchy, but I figured it was an off night. I saw old videos from the early days live that were very patchy but I figured that that was the early days and they would’ve got better over time. Well; this is still not very good.

I am not the kind of person to trowel on the negatives, but there are some points that sort of spoil this release for me. The band aren’t very tight. The drums sound sort of separate from the stringed instruments. Olly’s vocals are very different to the record with too much time spent out of breath or pointing the mic at the crowd or whatever. (I’m really hesitant to slag him off too much as he gets such grief online, and I’m not one of those people, but it is an honest reflection of this concert). The balance of instruments on the night sounds really wrong, with the levels of guitars and drums sounding confused and muffled and making the songs muddy and lacking in both heaviness and clarity. (I had this exact concern when I saw them live on this album cycle, so I know it isn’t just a choice at the Blu Ray’s sound mixing stage, and it really is a deal breaker).

Its a bit of a shame really. This is a perfectly recorded, brilliant looking, historic and exciting concert from the band at their zenith, playing a career spanning mixture of material for genuine fans. On that basis alone it is the kind of thing I’d usually hands down recommend. However, it is all spoiled by the actual concert.

My recommendation would be, if you are interested in the band, get a studio album instead. Suicide Season and There Is A Hell’ are utterly essential to fans of the genre, and show you what a vibrant and important band they are. Skip this unless you are a superfan who needs to own everything. In fact if you want a live album from the band, get Live At The Royal Albert Hall instead, since it has an orchestra on it and the proceeds go to a cancer charity.

Kingcrimsonprog Bring Me The Horizon have had an interesting evolution as a band, with the material on their new record being utterly unidentifiable as being the same band as the one who made their debut EP, and yet every release in between has been the completely logical sequel to its predecessor.

A journey that very much started when Suicide Season had less death growls and blast beats on it than their debut album, and featuring the odd little touches of electronics here and there, has album-by-album seen the band evolves into a BBC Radio 1-friendly band with almost entirely clean vocals, absolutely no touches of Death Metal anywhere in the proceedings whatsoever, and electronics out the wazzoo (so to speak). Its still Rock music (with Pop and Dance tinges), but there’s very little Metal left. They loose fans with each step on the road but seem to recruit 50 for every 1 who drops. A good guide to the band’s evolution is to take the two least-extreme songs on any album and that becomes the average sound of the next album… so, considering that their excellent previous album Sempiternal featured ‘Can You Feel My Heart?’ and ‘…And The Snakes Start To Sing’ – following my train of thought, you can see what sort of thing you can expect on 2015’s That’s The Spirit.

So that’s evolution covered. “Stylistically” would be the next concern – There’s tiny touches of Nine Inch Nails, there’s tiny touches of Pink Floyd, there’s even a moment with cheerleaders singing (like on Mastodon’s ‘Aunt Lisa,’ Marilyn Manson’s ‘mObscene’ and Faith No More’s ‘Be Aggressive’ amongst others) but it seems to me that most of the direction is from outside the comfort zone of the average Rock/Metal fan. What else can be said? Well its melancholy as hell, with a real hopeless, negative, depressing feel straight from the opener ‘Doomed’ – but its bittersweet, with euphoric electronic dance music sounds in the background and the most melodic and talented clean singing of the band’s career. Even the track called ‘Happy Song’ seems to be dripping in misery, and I guess you can see why if you read any interviews with the band’s frontman and his struggles with addiction. The songs do have some nice structuring and are well constructed, dynamic and interesting… its not just verse-chorus-verse, but it is immediate, accessible and catchy as all hell.

“Sonically” comes next – well, it sounds like a million bucks, which is interesting because its actually self-produced. It is amazingly clear, the electronics are top drawer, the mix is perfect, the drums are shimmering and the little touches of keys stick out like they’re tapping you on the shoulder. The production is actually notably good. Almost distractingly good.

Songwriting? Forget about it! All this direction changing might upset me (I am absolutely in love with the Suicide Season sound and would happily have taken four clones of it instead of evolution) but the thing that makes it all work is that the band just write absolutely furiously good songs. Songs that stick in your head. Songs that you think about all day at work. Songs that make you buy concert tickets. Highlights include the excellent single ‘Throne’ which just makes you want to throw fists in the air, ‘True Friends’ which is just stupidly catchy …as well as ‘Blasphemy’ which is something special, it would be the best song on almost any album by any of the band’s peers and its difficult to describe why, other than a plain and simple “Its just that damn good!”

Bring Me The Horizon have made a lot of great albums, but even so this one won’t be forgotten. In an already foolishly good year of excellent releases from a great many bands (this really has been a great year for music I enjoy) this one still stands out. That’s The Spirit isn’t an album I’ll listen to a few times and shelve, its still going to be in heavy rotation next week, next month, next year, and on the band’s next album-cycle. If you have similar tastes to me, get yourself a copy, you won’t be sorry!

Kingcrimsonprog Sempiternal is the fourth full-length studio album from the controversial, genre-defying British band Bring Me The Horizon. It was released in 2013 on RCA and was produced by Terry Date. The album sees Jordan Fish joining the band full-time as Keyboardist and former guitarist Jona Weinhofen leaving the band.

The first two things you may notice about the record if you’ve heard the band before are firstly that it’s a lot less heavy and a lot more experimental. Secondly, Olly’s clean vocals have got a lot better. At the start of the album, it seems like he’s improved a bit, but by the end you can hear a gigantic improvement.

A lot more time on the album is spent on clean vocals and soft melodies too. There is also a lot of places designed for crowds to sing a long to and a focusing on the electronic side that appeared a bit on Suicide Season and a lot on There Is A Hell.

This album opens right up into those atmospheric, electronic filled melodic moments. Its reminiscent of the style of tracks like ‘Don’t Go’ and ‘Blessed With A Curse,’ where the music has a lot of space, keys and absolutely all the death growls and blast beats from the early days have been removed. From then on there’s a lot of tracks like ‘Sleepwalking,’ ‘And The Snakes Start To Sing’ and ‘Seen It All Before’ that fit into that style, but taking it in a range of different tempos and directions. Most will bring a bit of heaviness in at times, but nothing as extreme as anything on the band’s first two albums.

‘The House Of Wolves’ brings back a bit of the British Hardcore scene influence, but that’s melded with the melodic, electronic style too. There’s a great breakdown, and some fast sections. ‘Shadow Mosses’ blends a little bit of the past back in to the sound too, but with a lot of their new direction. ‘Crooked Young’ is fairly heavy and bombastic, but has been hugely injected with the additional electronic elements. The album isn’t a repetition of their previous albums, but it definitely is a logical evolution.

The album is very dense sounding in terms of production style and how many little touches go on at once. Even when in essence all that’s happening is something as simple as a drumbeat continuing over feedback after the rest of the music dropped out, the sound is absolutely massive. So when all five musicians are going, and there’s keys, strings sections and guitar leads sneaking in and out, while the producer manipulates the sound like an instrument in itself at times, the record is very interesting.

Highlights include ‘Go To Hell For Heaven’s Sake’ which has a very catchy feel and some of the best drumming on the record, ‘Anti-vist’ which is one of the album’s heaviest moments and the immense album closer ‘Hospital For Souls’ which is incredibly cinematic and evocative.

At the end of the day it’s a difficult album to recommend since the band have so many detractors anyway and its quite a departure so even their own fans might dislike it. Not everyone will like this album. Some people will always hate the band because of their reputation and personalities. Some previous fans will hate the new direction that’s so far away from their early work. Some people will just not enjoy it.

I personally couldn’t be happier with the record however. I think it’s a masterpiece. The songs are enjoyable, the melodies are great and all the extra studio touches are interesting. It’s a very original sounding and emotionally powerful record with a lot to offer and one that really captures my imagination.

If you do chose to listen to it, go into it with an open mind and take it for what it is. It might not be to your tastes admittedly, but at least give it a fair chance because you may just discover your new favourite album.

**Oh, and if you found this review by search engine, when you discover it again on Amazon it is me posting it. It hasn’t been copied and pasted off here by a stranger, I post my reviews on Amazon as ‘Gentlegiantprog “Kingcrimsonprog.”’ So please don’t unhelpful-vote it because you thought it was stolen from me.**

Kingcrimsonprog ‘There is a Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There is a Heaven, Let’s Keep it a Secret,’ is the third full length studio album from British metal band Bring Me The Horizon. The album is one of the most adventurous and exciting records to have been released in years and is chocked full of dynamic, boundary pushing material that is likely to alienate as many people as it delights.

Bring Me The Horizon started out mixing extreme metal with metal core and as time went on reduced the number of straight up death metal riffs, death growls and blast beats until now, with their third studio album there is scarcely a second of music that sounds like a strictly death metal band would play, if this is a problem for you it may make sense to give this album a miss.

For everyone who enjoyed ‘Suicide Season,’ and its electronic moments, vocal approach and powerful emotion guitar moments this album is the logical conclusion, expanding on all these areas, basing entire songs around things that were only in parts of the previous album and while using barely any death vocals and not a single blast beat they have kept things fresh by introducing numerous clean vocals, acoustic passages and keyboard lines.

The best example of this style is the opening track, lyrically containing the album title sang by a female vocalist then electronically cut up and played like a keyboard solo in the same song that contains a clean intro, furious fast paced verses and a monster brakedown in the style of bands like Hatebreed and Chimaira towards the end.

If you are worried that the album won’t be heavy enough, that the brakedowns are gone or that the album is too much of a departure from the excellent ‘Suicide Season,’ sound then you will be delighted with tracks like ‘Anthem,’ ‘Visions,’ and ‘The Fox and the Wolf,’ which very much pick up where ‘Suicide Season,’ left off so while the album does contain a great deal of innovative ideas and cover lots of new ground, there is still enough of what the band had been doing previously to ease the transition and connect the two styles together comfortably.

Standout tracks include the fantastic opener ‘Crucify Me,’ along wit the powerful semi-ballads ‘Don’t Go,’ and ‘Blessed With A Curse,’ all of which exemplify just what makes this record so great; fresh ideas, inspired performances and truly unique music.

There is a Hell’ is honestly the best album the band have released and it is without hyperbole the best album the genre and the country has offered in some time, I can’t recommend it any more highly.

Kingcrimsonprog I know Bring Me The Horizon are one of those bands that are popular to dislike and that a great many internet users have problems with the band’s front-man Oli Sykes. Regardless, I came to the band with a relativly open mind assured that they would be the type of band that I’d like because I enjoy Hatebreed style bands, At The Drive In style bands and the Nine Inch Nails style electro moments.

This turned out to be a great suggestion, as Suicide Season has rarely left my stereo since I got it. Talented musicians writing interesting and inventive songs, what more could anybody expect or even want?

The album was definitely a grower and on repeat listens you get all the little touches, all the one off riffs will stick in your head and the gang chant vocals will shift in your opinion from something that is a bit cheesy and out of place to something to genuinely look forward to.High pitched vocals over drumming that uses the Crash Cymbal like a hi-hat and a lot of hardcore style breakdowns, is a pretty accurate way to describe every song on this record, with a few songs containing Death Growls and a few containing electro drums and effects to add a little variety.

Stand out tracks contain the lyrically intense ‘Suicide Season,’ which is eight plus minutes long and mixes the heavier stuff with the electro side and the very heavy and very catchy ‘Diamonds Aren’t Forever,’ which contains so many sing along moments in its short duration it feels like half an albums worth of choruses.

Fair enough, the band may have inspired your dislike for the way the have acted, dressed or what they have said but just give this album an honest, unprejudiced listen and you will find a genuinely great modern heavy album.