Bring Me the Horizon - POST HUMAN: SURVIVAL HORROR (Review)

Bring Me the Horizon arrive with their leanest album to date, but this is far from their meanest...

30th October 2020

Sony

My Rating:

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3.6

/10

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REVIEW

Bring Me the Horizon are a band that have been on my mind for the past few years, keeping me hooked despite none of their albums appealing to me outside of a few songs. When reminiscing on their discography as a whole, they are one of the few bands who have managed to improve by selling out, gaining popularity and even acclaim, especially with the sonic experimentation of their last album amo, a record that definitely stood out as their most broad and ambitious, even if it failed to break out of the mid-tier binds that have been persistently pervasive throughout their career.

Now, my favourite song from amo was far and away the slinking, dark "why you gotta kick me when i'm down", a track that was influenced by trap and grime in the best possible ways, and a song that arguably set the precedent for their following release, the strange Music to listen to EP released without warning in December of 2019, this "EP" being an eight song, hour-and-twenty-minute project exploring electronic and hip hop music in an unfortunately lacklustre way, Bring Me's typical inconsistency bleeding through the project, each song an experiment that either utterly failed or somehow succeeded. It's no surprise that the length of this project was off-putting to whatever fans had stuck with the band up until this point, and although I'm fairly certain I enjoyed it more than most it was by no means a great project. What surprised me was the speed at which they were able to churn out another entirely new project, this one another EP, the third major release from the band in under two years.

This time around, they've trimmed things down more than ever before, nine songs making up a brief 32-minute runtime that is far more digestible than any of their previous albums and EPs, and one that is also far more cohesive in terms of sound, at least than their past few releases. Gone is the pop rock, and gone is the electronica, gone is the hip hop. What's left? Well, this right here is alternative metal, pure and simple. The issue is the lack of ambition, something that, despite poor execution, has been a staple of the band's more recent output. it isn't that they've abandoned all experimentation, after all there are synths plastered all over this thing, and there are some creative edits courtesy of bandmember Jordan Fish, but what's sorely missing is distinction. This EP is no better than the Linkin Park output they're ripping off, and another sudden change for Bring Me the Horizon back to this influence is just another step towards losing whatever identity they still possessed.

Now, there is one exception on the album, and that is the song "Parasite Eve", a track with a genuinely ambitious structure and a message that comes with perfect time to coincide with the Covid-19 pandemic, the lyrics that would otherwise be unbearably cringy coming across as cleverly relevant, until you realise they began work on this song far before the pandemic's beginning, meaning the lyrics are strangely prescient. Outside of this, it's the song that best exemplifies the band's passion for electronics, and proof that they can heighten the music and not weigh it down. From the alluring, ominous chanting that opens the song to the unsettling, digitally "corrupted" outro, this truly is the band's masterpiece here, and unfortunately the only track that excels.

One of the largest problem I have, not only with this EP but the band as a whole, is their unwillingness (or lack of ability) to escape the emo clichés that impair their lyrics, something inescapable across their discography, and an issue that in the case of a song like "Obey" takes it from a mediocre metal song to a track that's cringe is genuinely more abrasive than the heaviest moments of the song itself, repelling me with lyrics like "don't wake up and smell the corruption" and "you call yourself peaceful / you monsters are peaceful". Worse still is the decision to feature YUNGBLUD on this song, an artist that epitomises everything wrong with Bring Me the Horizon, only they're somehow able to go a step further each and every time, trying far too hard to be edgy and succeeding only in getting a mockery from me.

The question I find myself asking is: can this EP be considered a misstep? With each of their previous releases displaying very similar problems, the frustration here is that it's just another entry in a long list of failures, and despite fixing some of the problems of preceding projects SURVIVAL HORROR manages to reintroduce some of the bands older problems, as well as the aforementioned ambition-deficit that has me sighing in shame, wondering how I ever thought this band would impress me. Post Human? More like Pretentious Human with No Comprehension of Good Lyrics, amiright?

TRACK RATINGS (/10)

1. Dear Diary, - 6

2. Parasite Eve - 8

3. Teardrops - 4

4. Obey - 2

5. Itch for the Cure - 5

6. Kingslayer - 4

7. 1×1 - 3

8. Ludens - 4

9. One Day the Only Butterflies Left Will Be The Ones In Your Chest As You March to Your Death - 2

BREAKDOWN

Ambition: 3

Atmosphere: 3

Catchiness/Enjoyability: 2

Content/Ideas: 3

Emotion/Engaging: 3

Execution: 4

Production: 7

Structure: 4

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Lyrics: 2

Vocals/Flows: 5

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Total: 36

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