For a head-spinning, eardrum-popping hardcore/metal/punk/fusion/math/prog (gasp, yes - prog, I say) band, The Dillinger Escape Plan is oddly popular. Or at least well-known. If you ever heard Calculating Infinity or the followup EP with Mike Patton, Irony is a Dead Scene, you'll know why this is so odd: this band does not play music that's easy to listen to. It's all screaming, whiplash-inducing time changes at breakneck pace, complex and abrasive guitar riffing, and more screaming, informed as much by free jazz as hardcore punk. Why this band shows up anywhere on MTV's radar is a mystery to me.That said, Miss Machine mixes things up and offers up more than a few surprises. While more than half the songs here are more or less what fans have come to expect - head-poundingly loud and intense hardcore - the band explores all sorts of more atmospheric, expansive terrain as well, to the point that they might alienate some of their more hardcore (double entendre not intended) fanbase. But it's these sonic explorations that make Miss Machine not just a more varied album than Calculating Infinity, but also a more accessible, and yes, better one. Mike Patton, though he was only with the band for its EP, has definitely left a mark - new vocalist Greg Puciato, making an excellent recorded debut with DEP here, vacillates between traditional hardcore screaming and a manically schizophrenic vocal style that sounds oddly like Patton himself.
It's not just in the vocals, though. "Unretrofied" is downright melodic and should be a radio hit in a better world - if anything it, as well as "Phone Home", sound like Nine Inch Nails crossed with Tool. "Sunshine the Werewolf" actually dares to add in some symphonic-sounding synths in its closing section - my head literally jerked up in surprise when I heard that. Sometimes, unbelievably, I'm reminded of System of a Down - though compared to these guys, System of a Down are musically a bunch of wimps.
The most progressive metal out there is happening outside what most folks think of as prog-metal, and Dillinger Escape Plan is on the cutting edge. If we're lucky, Miss Machine will be as far-reaching and influential as Calculating Infinity was.
review by Brandon Wu — 10-26-04 —
