It’s OK! You can stop screaming now. The day has come. Bring Me The Horizon have finally released their latest offering on Sony entitled ‘That’s The Spirit’, following a staggering buildup for the drop.
Opening track ‘Doomed’ creeps in with a series of eerie samples, before the recognisable vocals of Mr Sykes pour in. The tension is built up in the effects before the orchestral sounds and vocals lift the listener off their feet, the high notes respectable, especially if they can be pulled off live. It is certainly clear that Bring Me The Horizon are not afraid to mix their usual sound with a highly poppy overlay that is going to have young fans doing windmills in their bedrooms and singing into their hair brushes in the mirror.
‘Happy Song’ features not only the band, but also some robotic sounding children singing “S.P.I.R.I.T, let’s go”, before Oli slides in singing about his happy song, and being OK; an ode to having that song that takes you from the precipice to a happier place. The end of the song has a groovy low end breakdown, with Sykes screaming his Drop Dead vest off “a little fucking louder”, as the song ends with spirit.
With palms now suitably sweaty and a change of underwear required, ‘Throne’ ramps up the energy to a dance tent level with some syncopated effects and Oli’s emotional discourse before the massive sounding chorus of ‘Throne’ sounds insanely Chester Bennington. It is one of the standout tracks on the album, with the chorus destined to have venue roofs lifting off for the next year or so, as Oli sings “beat me black and blue”. Hopefully no one takes him literally.
‘Follow You’ is a welcome, more mellow moment, which fans will secretly sing to, pretending they are in fact the latest member of BMTH. Guys, it’s OK, we’ve all been there. Admitting it is the first step to recovery, as Oli sings “You can drag me through hell, if it meant I could hold your hand”.
‘What You Need’ offers some new ground for Oli’s vocal style, and indeed sounds impressive on record. In the pre-writing meeting, the word on the flip chart as they went for lunch was ‘HUGE’ and this album sounds exactly that. The track offers a variety of musical styles and sounds highly professional with Sykes offering “You make me want to slit my wrists and play in my fucking blood” which probably some people will relate to, although it may be a little over the top.
‘Avalanche’ and ‘Run’ will grow on you, but lack that immediate sucker punch. That said, ‘Run’ has a moody piano accompaniment that will sound massive in the arenas that BMTH are already confirmed to play later this year. “So let’s run” indeed.
‘Drown’ starts with Sykes’ emotional vocals (“You know that I can’t do this on my own”) before those pesky kids are brought back in to make sure they’ve truly earnt their hour’s pay, adding a blended wave of vocal support to Sykes, before he screams the song to its natural end.
It would have taken something quite awful for fans to reject BMTH. They simply have ginormous and fanatical support. But they haven’t played it safe, they’ve experimented with new sounds and produced an album of cinematic volume and panache that sets the bar high and whether rightly or wrongly, it surely won’t be long before they’re pushing Metallica aside and claiming that headline slot as their own.
DAVE BULL