Review Summary: This ambitious endeavour into electronic avant-gardism is begging for us to give it meaning, and within this lies the true power of 'Music to listen to~'.
Bring Me The Horizon may have polarised fans with amo, but regardless of how audiences received it, the release achieved one thing: it pioneered the band's exploration into the experimental.
Now, in this bizarrely titled EP, the British rock group serves us an unsettling extension of the journey that amo started. The group have quite obviously indulged in the extra creative breathing-room offered by an EP, and with this, their newest release is different; it is devoid of structure or identity.
This does not make it a bad release. It also does not make it special.
'Music to listen to~' must be judged both independently of what we expect from a well-established artist, yet irrespectively of its commercial context. And it's a pleasure.
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The record is quick to cement its recurring themes; after introducing itself with gentle ambiance, it proceeds to interrupt itself with a more sustenant beat, and from this point, tracks begin to spontaneously and erratically break apart. Drastic changes in its atmosphere make individual tracks feel like three.
We quickly learn that this record is attempting to offer us a listening experience through sonic environments that poke at the listener's mind instead of absorbing it, as if we're a nomad migrating through a continent of rapidly-changing climate. The listener is not lost in the music; the music is lost within the listener.
It's begging for us to give it meaning, and within this lies the true power of 'Music to listen to~'.
This EP is a reminder that Bring Me The Horizon are first-and-foremost not a metalcore band, or an electronic band, or even an alternative band; they are pure artists. Experimental music is volatile, and as such, acts as a trial of the elasticity of an artist. As proven in this release, the band possesses an implicit ability to generate sounds that manipulate emotion, and further, can beautifully produce tracks in any genre or mood that they desire.
In spite of this, the EP does have flaws.
Underground Big {HEADFULOFHYENA} attempts to project its musical intimacy through the same use of repetition that the other tracks successfully experiment with, but by doing this for over 19 minutes, is far too abstract to offer any value in its listening experience. Within the same track, a monologue from frontman Oli Sykes begins to make the track political.*
Activists and free-thinkers are prone to believing that their personal philosophies transcend politics, due to failing to realise that individuals can see a bigger picture as a result of differing values. Through the use of opinions on classism, veganism and theism, Oli's ignorance in the same regard leads to destroying the surrealism, and by extension, the suspension of the human ego that the record tried so hard to create. It's a shame.
Additionally, the opening track Steal Something. is lacking that same ambition that the other tracks possess. The opener appears to act as a 'bridge' between amo and 'Music to listen to~' rather than as an introduction to the EP itself and, as such, once the record loops back to the start, it sounds a little boring in contrast.
Regardless, these flaws do not detract from the musical excellency of the record as a whole. I struggle to listen to a single track from this record without being persuaded into listening to the EP in its entirety.
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The group's ambitious endeavour into avant-gardism and the meta-experimental is successful and well-realised, and although its attempt at postmodernism is premature, this flaw in the album's philosophy does not detract from the engaging and endearing execution of sound and production.
Music to listen to~dance to~blaze to~pray to~feed to~sleep to~talk to~grind to~trip to~breathe to~help to~hurt to~scroll to~roll to~love to~hate to~learn Too~plot to~play to~be to~feel to~breed to~sweat to~dream to~hide to~live to~die to~GO TO earns a 4.0/5.0.
