The Dillinger Escape Plan - Dissociation (2016)
There are few moments I appreciate more in life than showing someone a live video of The Dillinger Escape Plan for the first time, just to see the look on their faces when the band does some ridiculous shit like jump into the audience, hang upside down from the ceiling, or general acrobatic tomfoolery like that, and it's usually either a reaction similar to "What in the world.." or even better, an excited "What the fuck is this?!" and you can just hear something click in their voice that they want to check out more of this.. Whatever -this- is to them. The band in question to me is just youthful energy, not unwarranted violence. I can remember checking out their music for the first time almost a decade ago and thinking "What the fuck is this?" in a negative way, and then it slowly and steadily grew to love until they became one of my all-time favorite bands. The point I'm trying to make here is that they aren't just a band that interests me, they're a band that has become a vital part of my life, and I've bonded with many great people over them as we share favorite songs and favorite memories of stuff they've done live. Hell, one of my closest friends even did vocals for them a few months ago when he attended a show that Greg Puciato couldn't show up at, ain't that cool? Anyway, throughout my years, I've learned that you can tell a lot about a person from their favorite DEP album, and when they tell you, it always makes sense.
They recruited a new guitarist by the name of Kevin Anteassian to play with them on their final album, which helps make the line-up 90% different than when they first started, with guitarist Ben Weinman being the only original member, which is great because he's always been the main power behind this band for almost twenty years now, never stopping to take a breath 'lest he allow himself a moment to calm down and grow old, as with the rest of the world that he managed to ruthlessly dominate for almost two entire decades with his interchanging bandmates, listing no less than 17 of which in the booklet as still being a part of the band as a whole, along with thanking "all the other fearless soldiers who have graced the stage with us over the past 20 years", it helps serve as an obituary for the band, what they were and what they are.
When you listen to this album, one thing is for certain: This is without a doubt the absolute darkest release in their entire discography. Even just the beginning song "Limerent Death" will help cement it as the band's final chance to go all-out: Whereas vocalist Greg Puciato's lyrics had mainly been about failed relationships before, they generally pointed an angry finger at the ones he felt wronged by, but when he starts to wail out like he's crying "I gave you everything you wanted.. You were everything to me.." it sounds a lot more genuine than anything before, because he's opening himself up to expose his wounds to show that he's hurt more than he is angry, and then proceeds to have a complete fucking audible mental breakdown as he repeats it over and over, the words escaping his mouth quicker and quicker as he grows more and more panicked by the situation you can imagine he's in, as he screams out "I GAVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU WANTED, YOU WERE EVERYTHING TO ME, IGAVEYOUEVERYTHINGYOUWANTEDYOUWEREEVERYTHINGTOME!!" which serves as one of the band's best endings to any of their songs in their entire discography.
A fan of the band can expect to find everything they want to hear on this album, but if you thought albums like "Miss Machine", "Ire Works" and whatever else were dark whenever they wanted to be, you have no idea what you're in for with this album: The album is just drenched in death, and not necessarily actual human death, but the death of relationships, your ability to trust others, and even more depressing than that, the death of the band itself. Everything on this album feels like it has this depressing film of an impending end, so when Greg Puciato says "I'm afraid of how this ends.." in "Surrogate", I can't help but agree, because when listening to this album, I just don't want it to end, because that really rings out the fact that these mathcore giants are retiring, and maybe even now, months after the announcement, I still don't want to believe that, but as the album goes on and on, it's apparent that I can't run away from that fear forever, as the album tries to ring out its last moments of violence in the tenth track "Nothing to Forget", in which Greg Puciato screams out "Please let me be by myself, I don't need anything. Please let me be by myself, I don't need anyone." and it's a moment that's almost bittersweet: You get the aggressive song you wanted, but instead of Greg Puciato taking control of the situation lyrically like he usually does, he's begging for mercy. The man, this muscular giant, has broken down, exposing that he doesn't have as much of a grip on the situation as before. He's fallen. This man who basically would voice your angry thoughts towards an ex-lover or whoever else is now screaming out at the world, just begging just to be left alone. There's a certain level of emotional fragility to be found in this moment that doesn't really exist anywhere else in their discography.
Let's roll back to 1997 for a second to examine this band's first release, which was the self titled EP. It begins with "Proceed With Caution", an instrumental track which has a title that alludes to the fact that most people won't get, or will even be scared by this kind of hectic music, and then it launches into "I Love Secret Agents", a song that's so fucking aggressive it's only fitting to be an introduction to the band. They have many different types of songs in their discography, from the loud and hectic ones, the smoother and catchier ones, their crazy and oftentimes industrial interludes, and even the great experiments they occasionally pull such as the epic jazz-influenced final track of their 2007 album "Ire Works" in the form of "Mouth of Ghosts". People, myself included, were fully expecting the band to end with their final song on their final album being a complete audible frenzy to help cement the fact that the band's legacy was absolutely nothing to fuck with or even question, as they tower over many of their peers. I was expecting an explosion of a song with as many memorable riffs as Ben Weinman could pack in, and the most intense vocals from Greg Puciato yet, and what I got was just as intense.. But in an emotional way.
The eleventh and final track of the album happens to be the title track, and instead of ending things as Dillinger-esque as possible, they decided to end their career on a calm electronic song that features absolutely no harsh vocals from Greg Puciato whatsoever, as he sweetly sings over it in a way reminiscent of his new project The Black Queen, and like I mentioned before with how Greg Puciato was typically the man in control when it came to his previous lyrics regarding failed relationships, we get yet another break-up song lyrically, but it's much, much more mature than anything the band had offered before. Greg Puciato begins singing "By the last time in the car, then I already knew. At the time I laughed, I didn't know what to believe." and it hits home for anyone who's ever built up something with someone and then had it abruptly crash in front of their own eyes. He continues on to say to the girl "I couldn't take you. Don't confuse being set free with being discarded and lonely. I tried to tell you we'd never change.. I let you go, and when I left, I really tried to tell myself it was for me and not you." and it shows something incredible: After all of these years of lashing out at the world around him and basically screaming at past lovers in songs, he's strong enough to leave without harboring any hatred. He recognizes the toxic relationship and just leaves, because as he goes on to say, "Finding a way to die alone is better than what I was shown." and that lyric really, really fucking hits close to home. Perhaps the most emotional part of the entire track comes in the form of the ending, when Greg Puciato keeps repeating "Finding a way to die alone.. Finding a way to die alone.." softly without any music in the background, as the perfect send-off to Dillinger's long and emotional career.
With this album, I understand why they have to leave us, but as selfish and stupid of me as it is to say this, because I'm nothing more than a fan, I wish we could have just a little longer with them, even just a few more moments than what was promised. This was a band that could hype you up to fight a brick wall and win, a band that could make you sing along, and a band that could bring you back to earth after everything was said and done in the form of their calmer songs. This band wasn't just a band, it was a movement that we were all lucky enough to see and hopefully even experience: A movement of raw, violent, unrestrained youthful energy in which everyone could relate to everyone else in at least one way. No matter who tries to imitate them in any way, there will never be another Dillinger Escape Plan. These guys just simply cannot be replicated in any way, shape, or form, no matter what other mathcore bands you know of, because even if you found a band that sounded exactly like them to a T, they wouldn't stand as strongly for the same things that DEP did. This album hits in almost the same way the death of Adam 'MCA' Yauch of the Beastie Boys hit me because they're just a band that you always expect to be around, except, fortunately enough in this case, no one in the band died, they decided to just quietly euthanize the beast that they unleashed into the world almost two decades ago, but right before it, waving to the fans with a smile, as if to say "We had a lot of fun times with you guys, but we have to be going now. Take care of yourselves." and as hard as it is for me to do, I have to wave back at the band and say the exact same thing back to them.
Good bye, DEP. Thank you for the memories.
8/10
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Feel free to check out the song previews/buy this album using my Amazon Associate link!
