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fresh new sound
By: Rachel D’Arcy
Recommended tracks: Heavy Metal, Mother Tongue, Sugar Honey Ice & Tea, Wonderful Life
amo, the sixth studio release from Sheffield titans Bring Me The Horizon, is a whole new mantra for the quintet. Their first release since 2015’s That’s The Spirit, amo via RCA Records has already proven to be divisive amongst listeners. However, after a mini-hiatus, the band have found their way back with a slightly more modern, adult sound coming from the former-screamo aficionados.
Catchy in its own way, it’s been difficult to spin anything else since my ears were roped in with the opening chords of opener ‘i apologise if you feel something’ on last Friday’s release date, January 25, 2019. For someone who was a fairweather BMTH fan before this release, that’s an impressive feat in itself – it’s hard to find anything else that’s weighed up to the artistry and intelligent lyricism on this record.
The first track dropped from the album, last summer’s MANTRA, is the perfect summation of the slight diversion in sound down a more high speed, experimental highway, and is a definite album highlight. It discusses the blind following of a cult, chanting the ‘same old mantra’ – potentially a metaphor for how people follow the same music, same bands, same sound, time and time again without straying from the road they started out on.
That’s something that the Sheffield lads have managed to avoid with this record. They’ve stayed true to the sound they want to create and the dynamic they want to explore but without forgetting their core genre and fanbase.
This isn’t the band that gained cult status five or six years ago, or even stadium status more recently. It’s a group of musicians that are willing to learn, evolve and grow constantly, something to only be admired in a time when many in the same scene are too afraid to explore anything other than the ‘same’ they’re used to, detailed on the likes of ‘ouch’ and ‘sugar honey ice & tea’.
Like vocalist Oli Sykes chants repeatedly on penultimate track ‘heavy metal’, this s**t ain’t heavy metal anymore – it’s the music that Bring Me The Horizon want to make in a way, a sound that’s proven to be distinctly them whilst straying away from what they’ve been typecast as previously. ‘heavy metal’ in itself has a dirty, grimy riff that’s not to be messed with – a bit of a paradox when you consider the track’s main message – but mixed with digitized drums and a fresh beatbox, it’s a perfect summation of the whole record in four minutes.
amo is a complete musical revolution in 13 tracks, one that says this is the new wave of BMTH, and they sure as hell aren’t going anywhere any time soon – something that can only be a good thing, if this album is anything to go by.
