Demanding…
[Video]
[5.75]
David Sheffieck: Bring Me The Horizon are named after one of the final lines from Pirates of the Caribbean, which regardless of the diminished sequels and Johnny Depp’s subsequent fall into self-parody, remains a loose, joyous film with a brilliant ending. And that line remains fantastic, but it’s “Now, bring me that horizon.” The gap between “the” and “that” is the gap between BMTH’s vaguely angsty attempt at uplift and M83’s meaningful engagement with the same dynamics. Since I feel like I might as well get on the same level as the artist here, please let me pretentiously quote Mark Twain, who said it first and best: it’s “the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.”
[3]
Patrick St. Michel: The emo revival does not seem like a very sturdy bandwagon to latch on to.
[3]
Josh Winters: 12-year-old Josh was a self-proclaimed “emo kid” with bleached highlights, a highly manicured Myspace profile, and, like many kids, an inability to truly understand the harsh realities of the real world. I think about that time of my life and I remember how liberating it felt to discover my true identity and how miserable I was as I walked into middle school every morning. This song takes me back to when I first learned about Tell All Your Friends, when, for a short time, it felt like the only way I could channel all my fiery frustration was through chunky guitars and shouty, testosterone-fueled vocals. For that reason, I choose to embrace “Drown” instead of writing it off as a hilariously hyperbolic act of catharsis, because 10 years later, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t share the same fears and anxieties Sykes has swimming inside his mind. Sometimes, it feels so damn good to scream.
[7]
Edward Okulicz: Puts me in the mind of what might happen if you got the bloke from Thursday to sing over, like, any British rock band who sometimes get a bit clever-clever grandiose, or something. Then I found out the actual bloke from Thursday is now working with the law-abiding members of Lostprophets and felt immediately guilty about liking this brazen crossover attempt — it’s not just me that thinks this is a good idea though! Nonetheless, while it’s pure tripe as metalcore, it’s a ruthlessly effective pop song — big cheesy drama given potency through urgency and earnestness.
[8]
Hazel Robinson: It is utterly baffling to me why any band would want to sound like a more self-aggrandised version of Lostprophets in 2015.
[4]
Micha Cavaseno: When I tried to get into post-hardcore, my friends were all the elders who’d survived the great nu-metal purge to stumble into scenecore. They’d made the jump via bands like Poison The Well, Finch, Refused, Hopesfall or whomever in order to discover how far you could really go. And just beneath me a few years were the “stupid kids.” They liked BMTH typically, and would eventually warn of the tide changing to the Pierce The Veil/Black Veil Brides/Three Word Score bands that currently do ridiculously well among adolescents but rarely get regarded with seriousness outside of Alternative Press. So returning to listen to “Drown” is funny to me because this is totally a straight up rock anthem from guys who used to make generic screams and riff music. They’re making the sort of rock filler that my predecessors got ensnared by. Strange to see the same events, separated by time, and getting stuck in between.
[5]
Thomas Inskeep: “You got emo in my metalcore!” “You got metalcore in my emo!” In this case, however, these two tastes do taste great together: the emo influence adds an additional level of melody to BMTH. And these guys know how to write; this is a brutally well-constructed song, full of dramatic tension, with the great opening line “What doesn’t kill you/Makes you wish you were dead.” Pretty great stuff.
[7]
Alfred Soto: This has pissed off their metalcore base, but whatever: the chorus is an earworm, and I dig the high-pitched harmonies before the last blast of power chordage.
[6]
Iain Mew: It’s not so much a song as a way to plunge in and out of their ridiculously huge riff sound, stretching out to the horizon and beyond. Or, at least, I wish it was, because every attempt to add more, from the tortured poetry to the chorus of backing vocals, drags it down.
[5]
Anthony Easton: There is always a balance in metalcore, where the band will sound more like metal, and where the band will sound more like punk. This tends towards metal music and punk lyrics and does an excellent job at both. The children’s choir buried in the mix is just creepy, but in the best way.
[7]
Brad Shoup: Frontloading the big choral part was smart; its memory sticks to everything else that follows. The declarations bark rather than simper, so the question and the demand (“who will fix me now,” “don’t let me drown”) are a little puzzling. Can’t he scream his way out of the quicksand? The track is muscular but not steroidal: lots of four-on-the-floor emphasis alternating with a Deftones-like three-fourths-speed dreamsurge.
[6]
Mo Kim: Imagine the internal battle: “It comes in waves, I close my eyes/Hold my breath and let it bury me” suggests a resignation undercut by the chorus’s anguish, the vulnerability in a plea like “Don’t let me drown” speaking for itself. There’s a sonic conflict here, too, quiet hints of despair versus loud anthemic resistance. Yet the detail that wins me over comes at the very beginning: a live count of “one, two, three, four,” suggesting that this song has been rehearsed, polished, honed for maximum resonance. Some may accuse songs like “Drown” of adolescent angst, but I read it as a document of continued struggle — a subject endlessly battered but head still above the water.
[8]