Technical metal and hardcore scratch very different itches, despite sharing many of the same root-level obsessions (speed, aggression, you know the drill). One's fixated on a maniacal instrumental proficiency; the other strips rock down to a core of primitive blare. Dillinger Escape Plan's 1999 debut, Calculating Infinity, was a game-changing (and copycat-spawning) album because DEP excelled at both halves of the equation. Not the easiest thing to manage. DEP spun arrangements to shame metal's biggest control freaks, but executed them with a raw energy that suggested the whole thing might splutter into instrument-flinging chaos at any second.
So it goes on the typically overwhelming (in many senses) Option Paralysis, but as with the band's previous two albums, the new one's not entirely successful. Unlike the frighteningly focused Infinity, DEP's 21st century records pull in too many stylistic directions, sometimes to the detriment of what the band does best. Infinity was unrepeatable. Radical lineup shifts-- and the restlessness common to genre-mixers-- meant a change in direction was inevitable. 2004's Miss Machine and 2007's Ire Works offered an ever-broadening sound that kinda-sorta skirted crossover-friendliness, a sometimes awkward mash of traditional, melodic rock and hideous shrieking and bashing. Option Paralysis continues in that vein for better or worse.
When DEP stick to the sound they perfected on Infinity, they're the only mathcore band left standing that still matters, and there are plenty of blinding moments on Option Paralysis. For instance the way "Good Neighbor" shifts unexpectedly and almost imperceptibly mid-song, from jagged spasms of ultra-tricky death metal drumming to thundering, straight-ahead, old-school hardcore. You're left fumbling to figure out how the hell the band pulled it off and too jacked-up on adrenaline to really care. That's the draw of DEP at their best. They certainly provide enough brain-scrambling fodder for the count-the-time-changes crowd. In two and a half minutes, "Endless Endings" cuts from power metal histrionics to funk-metal groove to grindcore splatter with a fluidity that sounds like DEP's playing with samples rather than playing in real time.
But sudden eruptions of emotive crooning feel out of place. The icky mix of cocktail piano and emo melodrama on "Widower" is a major offender. It's not just that the inevitable math-y freakout derails the song's sense of momentum. It's also that DEP's notion of what constitutes "pop" is so damn corny. Forget Faith No More, the most frequent point of comparison. Without Mike Patton's sense of the absurd to undercut the pomp, this shit sounds like Foreigner with an affinity for blast beats. DEP don't need to worry about "softening up" or (gack) "selling out." They need to worry about the fact that 3/4ths of Option Paralysis is astounding and 1/4th is plain cringeworthy. They might be better off sticking to the devil they know, rather than trying to become the first tech-math-metal-core-whatever band to land on Now That's What I Call Music.
