GUITARISTS SAVE THE DAY AGAIN

Darkest Hour is kinda breaking my heart, because, like Dillinger Escape Plan and Caliban, they blew my world apart one night in concert then have failed repeatedly to deliver a great album. Dillinger is frustrating as hell in their inability to write more than two types of song (Bad Religion syndrome), but Darkest Hour is a close second, somehow eluding awesomeness despite counting among their ranks a Crown superfan and one of two murderous lead guitarists. It reminds me of my uncle groaning through a Sunday listening of Souls of Black, dismissively stating that no amount of superb guitarwork can salvage shitty lyrics and go-nowhere songs. I agreed curtly, but thought We haven't even gotten to "Absence of Light" yet, fucker.

As guitar playing gets awesomer and albums sound more rushed and formulaic, this idea is growing less true. Just ask the guitarists of Black Dahlia Murder, Shadows Fall, and Megadeth who've elevated respectively great, tiresome, and outright fraudulent Metal records with awesome fretfucking. Mustaine fired the drummer's damn brother to hire guitarist Chris Broderick, and the big asshole must be thrilled to get a Friedman-level player at less than the Pitrelli price.

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN'S JOURNEY, COVERS

It's not my custom to visit MTV's trite Headbanger's Blog but it's a cheap laugh to pop over there and check out the non-ironic Limp Bizkit news. That's right folks, somebody in the MTV organization thinks Limp Bizkit is still newsworthy. Other annoying news at Hb'sB entails the chronically self-sabotaging Ben Weinman and his Dillinger Escape Plan, who plan to join the Season Of Mist roster for some reason. Kinda. Weinman, in long sentences:

It is becoming clear that as the music industry standard continues to change on a daily basis, artistic and operational freedom has become a band's most valuable asset. 100% free of all previous contractual ties, Dillinger is in an amazing position to collaborate with some interesting partners which will continue to nurture the ethic that we have been doing our best to stay true to for over 10 years now. Season of Mist has always been a leader in releasing some of the most extreme and interesting metal and experimental music. We look forward to releasing our next full length effort in association with Season of Mist as the very first chapter of this new journey. 

Now at long last DEP has the freedom to make the same album twice and pump out endless Greg Muscleman karaoke. I swear I've never seen a band more in love with itself. 

DILLINGER ESCAPE PLAN IS BUMMING ME OUT

I remember buying a Dillinger Escape Plan Calculating Infinity shirt though it was clearly at least two sizes too large. That's how much I loved DEP and the extent to which I wanted to tell the world about it. But since those days, DEP has initiated a step-by-step process of turning me off. I rejoiced when they sacked their inept first singer for muscleman Greg Puciato, but that's turning out to be a negligible improvement what with all his macho shit. And though Miss Machine was a wildly uneven, occasionally brilliant record, its tech-spaz material suddenly seemed like a total chore next to their effortlessly accessible catchy shit. 

The less said the better about Ire Works and its awful hipster metal title, but at least let's say that DEP mainman Ben Weinman's solution to the dynamics problem (which he acknowledged to me) turned out to be fragmenting their music further; instead of an atonal, screamy tech workout next to a plodding, melodic song (as on Miss Machine), now these parts were jammed together within the same song. Which is fine but the whole thing felt like outtakes left over from Miss Machine. 

The latest straw (monthly line-up changes notwithstanding) is this DEP proclivity for pointless covers that sound just like the orginals, but crappy. Are we to consider it daring when DEP tackles out-of-character songs like "Wish" by Nine Inch Nails, "Angel" by Massive Attack, or gasp a Justin Timberlake song? Snore. Oh you wacky mathcore guys, you sure showed close-minded fans like those two guys still around from your early days. Everybody else just suffers through this inessential shit, not least of all the not-at-all interesting version of Living Colour's "Cult of Personality" (above).