Review - Bring Me The Horizon's Surprise EP

Normally, I include the title of the release I'm reviewing in the title of the post. However, I didn't want to do that with this release, as the official title is "Music to listen to~dance to~blaze to~pray to~feed to~sleep to~talk to~grind to~trip to~breathe to~help to~hurt to~scroll to~roll to~love to~hate to~learn to~plot to~play to~be to~feel to~breed to~sweat to~dream to~hide to~live to~die to~GO TO"; one of the many surprising aspects of this release. Not even a year out from their latest album, amo, and Bring Me The Horizon is at it again with a new EP. This one, however, goes way off the deep end in terms of exploring new territories and sounds. Despite being only 8 songs long, the release is an hour and 15 minutes long - putting the average song length at over nine minutes. It's a wild ride, an unusual collection of songs that are all unusual themselves. At times it feels like a mixtape, other times it feels like a remix album, but it's neither of those things. It feels very hard to describe, even after listening to it and processing it for over a week.

Boasting a wide range of features, the EP is a true flex of the band's abilities to genre hop and collaborate outside their perceived field. Some I was familiar with - Halsey, on what is arguably the strongest song of the release. Others, I either hadn't heard of or hadn't listened to before, such as BEXY, Lotus Eater, and Toriel. The first two feature on what is the oddest and eeriest of the songs, "Underground Big (HEADFULOFHYENA)". The first five minutes or so are pretty cool - one of the more intriguing parts of the EP. It's a really heavy, hard rap sound over a simple, dissonant synth melody. Oli Skyes contributes the "chorus" of the song, which is a different but cool switch for the band (and something I hope they'll explore more in the future). At around the 4:23 mark, it completely switches up and goes into a brief hardcore breakdown that fuses with the electronic/hip-hop beat. It's one of my favorite parts of the EP - completely unexpected, yet feels like a very natural progression within the piece. The rest of the 19 minutes of the song are then just a loop of the synth melody featured earlier in the song. It gets eerie after a while - I tend to skip the rest of the song once I listen to the first five minutes.

Toriel features on one of my other favorite tracks of the album, "Dead Dolphin Sounds 'aid brain growth in unborn child' Virtual Therapy / Nature Healing 2 Hours". Weird title aside, it's much more based in electronic sounds, with a house influence. The part that keeps me coming back is the vocals, which is a repetition of the following lines:

"I'm so lonely It's too much to bear There's dead dolphins in the ocean No one seems to care"

The melody is haunting, especially when coupled with the lyrics. It gives the song a darker tone despite the upbeat nature of the instrumental.

This release cements the direction the band is headed - or not headed. Gone is days of metal and hardcore - Bring Me The Horizon is in a new decade and a new era. Even the time of releasing full length albums might be gone. In a recent interview with NME, Sykes told them that "We're not going to do an album again, maybe ever. We're thinking about doing shorter records... the plan is to release multiple records next year." With this being the case, it's clear that we'll receive new music from the group more often. Although I am curious to see if the other releases will be in this same electronic style, or if they'll still be doing more alternative rock as well. I do thoroughly enjoy some of the tracks off this EP, but some of it is too abstract for my taste. I am always intrigued and impressed by bands/artists who can make music that isn't so linear. It's not what I like to listen to consistently, however.

Lots of surprise with this EP, but also a lot of enjoyment. It's an excellent way for the band to end 2019/start 2020, and shows a bright future for this ever evolving group.