‘There is a Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There is a Heaven, Let’s Keep it a Secret,’ is the third full length studio album from British metal band Bring Me The Horizon. The album is one of the most adventurous and exciting records to have been released in years and is chocked full of dynamic, boundary pushing material that is likely to alienate as many people as it delights.
Bring Me The Horizon started out mixing extreme metal with metal core and as time went on reduced the number of straight up death metal riffs, death growls and blast beats until now, with their third studio album there is scarcely a second of music that sounds like a strictly death metal band would play, if this is a problem for you it may make sense to give this album a miss.
For everyone who enjoyed ‘Suicide Season,’ and its electronic moments, vocal approach and powerful emotion guitar moments this album is the logical conclusion, expanding on all these areas, basing entire songs around things that were only in parts of the previous album and while using barely any death vocals and not a single blast beat they have kept things fresh by introducing numerous clean vocals, acoustic passages and keyboard lines.
The best example of this style is the opening track, lyrically containing the album title sang by a female vocalist then electronically cut up and played like a keyboard solo in the same song that contains a clean intro, furious fast paced verses and a monster brakedown in the style of bands like Hatebreed and Chimaira towards the end.
If you are worried that the album won’t be heavy enough, that the brakedowns are gone or that the album is too much of a departure from the excellent ‘Suicide Season,’ sound then you will be delighted with tracks like ‘Anthem,’ ‘Visions,’ and ‘The Fox and the Wolf,’ which very much pick up where ‘Suicide Season,’ left off so while the album does contain a great deal of innovative ideas and cover lots of new ground, there is still enough of what the band had been doing previously to ease the transition and connect the two styles together comfortably.
Standout tracks include the fantastic opener ‘Crucify Me,’ along wit the powerful semi-ballads ‘Don’t Go,’ and ‘Blessed With A Curse,’ all of which exemplify just what makes this record so great; fresh ideas, inspired performances and truly unique music.
There is a Hell’ is honestly the best album the band have released and it is without hyperbole the best album the genre and the country has offered in some time, I can’t recommend it any more highly.
*****