"Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected flames"
-Samuel Johnson
While Mr. Johnson's quote was said long ago, it still rings true today in the most unexpected of places: to describe the pleasant surprise that is There is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen it, There is a Heaven Let's Keep it a Secret, the third full-length from British metal's best young act Bring Me the Horizon.
Allow me to preface this review by saying that, prior to There is a Hell, I hated Bring Me the Horizon, and I was not alone. Many found their frontman/screamer Oliver "Oli" Sykes to be an obnoxious attention whore, and given the band's two previous releases (Count Your Blessings and Suicide Season) that really only appealed to 15 year-old scene girls and br00tal moshers, the music he made didn't help Sykes's case at all. However, any music critic who listened to the band could look at the two breakdown-oriented discs and see that the band's musical prowess was unmatched in their saturated genre, it just needed a little more variety and a more mature approach to the lyrics. In simpler terms, you can eat pizza every day, but eventually you're going to want to eat something else, right?
Right. Those same critics who accused Bring Me the Horizon of being too same-sounding to make any waves in today's metal/hardcore scene will be hard-pressed to find any traces of the band's previous work in There is a Hell, which will serve as Sykes's proof that he just may be worthy of all the attention he gets. Not so fast though: the men behind Sykes are the ones who truly star throughout the album. While the maturity haters of the band were looking for in Sykes finally come out, it's the four dudes behind him (bassist Matt Kean, drummer Matt Nicholls, and guitarists Lee Malia and Jona Weinhofen) that take over many of the tracks, producing one of a handful of albums that can be considered a sonically intriguing metal release from the last few years. From the guitar solo on "Blessed With a Curse" to the somber mood created on "Don't Go," the band shows a wide array of speeds and experiments with things that the band likely never thought about trying to do just a few years ago. That's not to say they don't please the moshers, though: there are breakdowns to be had, and they're as hard-hitting as ever, see the end of "It Never Ends" and "Anthem" for proof.
Where There is a Hell truly shines, however, are the chances the band continually take with their song structures. "Crucify Me" and "It Never Ends" include unexpected interludes that slow the pace down, if only for a brief moment, while "Don't Go" and the instrumental interlude "Memorial" are practically a slowdancing songs compared to the rest of the band's discography. While many metal bands are teaming up on songs to create some sort of "perfect storm" for mosh pits everywhere, Bring Me the Horizon chose to bring in artists to push their creative boundaries even further. The first instance we see is synth-pop one-woman show Lights appearing on "Crucify Me," the album's opening track, as she provides a chilling ending to the album's longest song. Up next is fellow Brit John Franceschi, frontman of the pop-punk act You Me at Six, who adds a much-needed break from Sykes's unrelenting energy on the oddly-named "Fuck." Lights pops up again on "Don't Go," and it's hard to tell which song she adds the most to. The insertion of a synth-pop princess sounds like a really, really bad idea for a metal band, but the experiment pays off in a big way, adding depth and maturity to a band whose sound was lacking both of those things prior to There is a Hell.
If you didn't get a good idea from the last few paragraphs, I really like this album. A lot. It's almost a miracle, given how much I hated Oli Sykes, his image, and all of the scene kids that worshipped him. I hate his band's breakdown-oriented releases, his immature lyrics ("I've got a secret! It's on the tip of my tongue, it's on the back of my lungs. And I'm gonna keep it. I know something you don't know" is not good lyrical content, sorry kids), and his incessantly obnoxious clothing line, Drop Dead!. That being said, There is a Hell Believe Me I've Seen It, There is a Heaven Let's Keep it a Secret will change your opinion on Sykes and the entire band, and it shows us how good metal can still be when a band pushes their creative barriers and takes a chance to make a mature leap, risking leaving some of their younger fans behind. But the album blends together the maturity and depth haters were looking for, breakdowns that'll keep the moshers happy, and Oli Sykes' darkest lyrics yet into a swirling wave of metal brilliance and beauty.
tl;dr?: Forget everything you thought you knew about Bring Me the Horizon, listen to this album with an open mind, and you just may find your favorite metal album of the year.
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