The Dillinger Escape Plan - CD collection

[16-07-2025]

The Dillinger Escape Plan are a mathcore and experimental metal band from New Jersey around the only consistent member, guitarist Ben Weinman. DEP are known for their extremely abrasive style with on a dime tempo shifts, incomprehensible rhythmic meters, loud guitar screaching and industrial sonic experimentation, making them into the perhaps angriest jazz band in the world. My first exposure to them was their 2010 song Farewell, Mona Lisa, which opens, without warning, with an immediate assault of impenetrable noise, high pitched screaming and disorienting rhythmic chaos, which left me in shock with my jaw dropped. Although this was, at the time, completely beyond me, the fact that you are now reading this post probably tells you that there was something intriguing about it. The pure energy, aesthetically, the way video was shot, the way that I was watching these bunch of completely unremarkable looking guys play possibly the heaviest and most abrasive music I had ever heard, the way that, despite coming from punk rock, feeling a kind of fascination with musical complexity that I can't quite grasp, the way the song developes into a very melodic and atmospheric alt-metal song, clearly showing the band had, after all, very impressive pop chops. Looking back, this song was the perfect introduction from the band, not only knocking me off my chair in its first seconds, but also perfectly encapsulating the range the band had. DEP are a band that I used to have a huge chunk of their discography on vinyl (Ire Works onward), and that I only just now finally completed again on CD.

To start at the beginning, the band's original vocalist was Dimitri Minakakis, with whom they recorded their first couple releases, the first two EPs self-titled and Under the Running Board, and the debut full-length, Calculating Infinity. This first album is very highly regarded in extreme metal circles for its very technical, jagged and abrasive playing, its complete, deliberate disregard for the songwriting rule book, and its many sudden changes in tempo, meter and intensity. Dimitri's aggressive hardcore screams support the heaviness of the music. Furthermore notable is that they manage to achieve this extreme heaviness without even downtuning their guitars, relying more on high pitched screaching noises created with their instruments and their abilities to surprise and disorient the listener. If there's any single song that best represents this era, it's 43% Burnt, which has stayed a fixed part of their setlist throughout their whole career and is their most played song to this day. Dimitri then, however, decides to leave the band due to wanting to break with the band's intense touring. During the search for a new vocalist, the band had a brief stint with none other than Mike Patton, the very eclectic vocalist of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, who professed his love for the band early on, and collaborated with them for their new EP Irony is a Dead Scene. This EP not only closes the black-cover-with-narrow-orange-image-in-the-middle-era of the band, but it also opens them up to much more sonic experimentation than just the extreme disorienting heaviness of the early material.

For a new permenent vocalist, they eventually find Greg Puciato. And may I just say, I fucking love this guy. He might be my favourite heavy vocalist of all time. He not only fully delivers in the harsh vocals department as a perfect replacement for Dimitri with his hoarse screaming style, but his very unique, nasal singing voice with a range that reaches all the way up into an impressive falsetto opens up much more range for the band to explore musically. Greg, himself inspired by, among many others, Faith No More and Mike Patton, would continue bringing that influence into the band. This does not mean that there is any shortage of the familiar, disorienting chaos though, as the band demonstrates immediately with the opener Panasonic Youth for their new album, Miss Machine, which happens to be their second most played live song today. The new musical influences brought into this album, and which is the thing that keeps me hooked to this band, is their ability to slow it down, and write genuinely extremely melodic and catchy alt- and industrial metal songs, with more conventional rhythms, harmonies and song structure. On this album, these songs would be Unretrofied and Setting Fire to Sleeping Giants, the latter of which is perhaps one of my favourite alt metal songs of all time. To many early fans of the band, this addition would represent a watering down of the uncompromising heaviness of the Dimitri era, but to me, this what makes their style work. Don't get me wrong, I've grown to genuinely really enjoy the chaotic, abrasive mathcore the band is primarily known for, but I'm not really an extreme metal guy, and for me to have a style that is this far on the extremes of music to have an appeal beyond a curiosity, I need contrast, an ocassional moment of rest, harmony, a pop hook. And no band does this as perfectly as The Dillinger Escape Plan from here on out. You let the heavy, chaotic songs blow through your ears, scrub your brain clean, and then when one of the melodic songs comes along, it hooks its claws into you like nothing else. And now with the hook firmly in your brain, you're ready for everything to be torn down and wiped clear again. These two ends of the band's spectrum perfectly complement each other, as neither would have its impact without the other.

This land of contrasts is perhaps best represented in their next album, Ire Works, which features my favourite one of their "pop" songs, the groovy, falsetto-led and undoubtedly deeply Faith No More inspired Black Bubblegum. The album experiments also a lot more with electronics and ambiance, like the glitchy, unsettling intro of Sick on Sunday, and the instrumental duos When Acting as a Particle and When Acting as a Wave. Prior to this album, they split ways with original drummer Chris Pennie, which for this album, is covered by Stolen Babies drummer Gil Sharone. Gil would not stay with the band for long though, and he is quickly replaced by new permanent drummer, Billy Rymer. With Billy, they recorded my favourite album of theirs, 2010s Option Paralysis, which also features my introduction and I would argue, their magnum opus, Farewell, Mona Lisa. My edition of this album comes in extremely cool, albeit inconvenient packaging, a digipack that opens up like a flower. Back during the time I collected vinyl, I also had a copy of this album on vinyl, which came with a cover with the band logo punched out and a spinning disc of the artwork attached behind it, making the noisy album artwork seem even more dizzying and impermanent due to never quite staying in place. Packaging gimmicks aside, my favourite art direction comes with their follow-up, One of Us is the Killer. With the announcement of the next album Dissociation also came the announcement of their breakup following a final tour, where I also luckily managed to experience them live. The breakup came from a feeling to have done everything they wanted to do as a band and a desire to quit while they were on top. Dissociation makes for a fantastic closing to their discography, it being perhaps a tad more mellow but not lacking any of its teeth, intensity or ability to surprise and disorient.

After the breakup, members of the band continued in the music scene, filling in for other various existing bands. Puciato, after some solo projects, eventually joined up with former members of Every Time I Die as a vocalist for their new hardcore band Better Lovers. However, the story may not be fully over for The Dillinger Escape Plan after all, as in late 2023, it was announced that they would reunite with original vocalist Dimitri Minakakis to play shows for the 25th anniversary of Calculating Infinity, and they kept playing shows since, so who knows what's to come. Although I am not the biggest fan of Dimitri's era of the band and in their reunion shows they have exclusively played songs from that era of the band, I'd be very curious to see if there was new material planned and how it would connect with the band's now very eclectic catalogue. Regardless of if they're back for good or not, I'm very grateful we got to get such an incredible discography of a band as special as them and that I got to experience their live energy at least once.