WASHINGTON, December, 5, 2011—There was a moment of dead silence after Dillinger Escape Plan took the stage before they started their set. The air from the crowd was sucked in as the band stood still for a brief moment. In a split second, the highly articulated noise from one of the definitive hardcore acts began to bludgeon the audience of the 9:30 Club into submission.
Dillinger Escape Plan has been mainstays in the hardcore/metal scene for well over a decade. Despite being engrained in the scene, it’s hard to say they have anything resembling contemporaries. It’s an often used phrase for bands across the board, but there really isn’t another band quite like Dillinger Escape Plan.
This stems from being able to meld several different principles from both hardcore and metal. There are several bands who execute the technical guitar work the band employs. Greg Puciato’s vocals go from screaming to singing and various stages in between without hesitation. All of these things have been attempted in a hardcore/metal context, but not quite to the extent that Dillinger Escape Plan has taken it to and not with the same ferocity.
It’s one thing to write overly technical parts. There are plenty of musicians out there who have been this ambitious with their craft, but having it relate to the audience and being to create a coherent tune is another thing entirely. A lot of the credit for that falls on Guitarist Ben Weinman’s guitarist, who has been the main architect of Dillinger’s sound structure since the band’s early days.
Despite their intention to seemingly ravage the audience with noise and then continuing to pummel them throughout the set, they never lose sense of actually crafting songs. Too many think that just being loud and/or hard is enough to win over a crowd and in some ways, they’re right. Metal and hardcore has a certain contingent of fans who more or less just want to be punched in the face. That’s never been Dillinger Escape Plan’s whole mission statement. They’ve always been about something more than just playing as loud and hard as possible, and it causes a visceral reaction with the crowd regardless of the situation.
Another interesting thing about the band and their set is the level of consistency they’ve managed to pull off over the years. The last album they released was 2010’s Option Paralysis, so at the moment there’s no album for them to really push. This opens up a number of possibilities and allows them to mix and match songs from their extended discography having to specifically promote new material.
Since their first full length album Calculating Infinity, the band has been through quite the big of turmoil, with Weinman and bass player Liam Wilson being the only members remaining from those early days. Even so, they’re able to seamlessly integrate a song with a bit of a mainstream groove like “Milk Lizard” with the guttural punch of a song like “Panasonic Youth.”
It wouldn’t be a Dillinger Escape Plan show though without their trademark aggression. For all their ability playing technically, they wouldn’t be able to get the crowd into a frenzy as well as they do if they didn’t translate the energy on stage. The band never stops moving during their and gain momentum the more intense their songs become. It’s this intensity that drives the band and their show.
They’ve been described as anything from grindcore to mathcore. No genre label does their brand of ear splitting technical musical aggression justice though. There are few bands who have attempted the creative leaps of Dillinger, and none so frequently. While clearly not for everyone, if anyone has an appreciation for metal and hardcore, the Dillinger Escape Plan is a must see.
Stephen Bradley is an avid music listener. Read more of his work in Riffs at the Washington Times Communities.
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