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Bring Me The Horizon - Sempiternal review



Reviewer:
7.3

172 users:
7.49
Band: Bring Me The Horizon
Album: Sempiternal
Release date: April 2013


01. Can You Feel My Heart
02. The House Of Wolves
03. Empire (Let Them Sing)
04. Sleepwalking
05. Go To Hell, For Heaven's Sake
06. Shadow Moses
07. And The Snakes Start To Sing
08. Seen It All Before
09. Anti-Vist
10. Crooked Young
11. Hospital For Souls

Everybody, let's give a round of applause.

Bring Me The Horizon has made an album that DOESN'T suck.. No, no they have not. It seems after a few releases of some sub-par material and general band dumbassery, Bring Me The Horizon have managed to make something that's actually good. Not ironic "Bro check this breakdown" good either.

This is actually good.

Sempiternal is a post-hardcore release with some heavy electronic hints. Sounds pretty awful on paper eh? Well, for some reason it all manages to blend together nicely. The guitars have a nice, light, non-metal tone, which complements the electronics quite well. The electronics work almost like the synth in an atmospheric black metal band. It provides a nice base, and fills any gaps that may be left by the rest of the music. As expected with a modern metal release, bass is inaudible. That's nothing new, however. It's almost expected nowadays. I also really enjoyed the drum work on this release; it's nice and varied, complex, and buried a little back in the mix. They're not overpowering, nor underwhelming. Now, the piece of resistance.

Oli Fucking Sykes.

Oli is the main reason why this band has a terrible reputation. His utter incompetence and ignorance really made me steer clear of them. After a few listens to some scattered songs here and there I was impressed. This kid's got a voice.

Don't expect any first-album-bree-breeing in this release. Oh no, Oli steers completely clear of this path. Most of the vocals here are clean, sad, emo-esque vocals. They're not whiny or nasally, just sad and mellow. When he does eventually scream, it's high pitched and not nearly as all out as on previous releases. I was extremely impressed with his cleans. I honestly did not expect anything good to come out of his mouth. But, low and behold, I was proven wrong. Good job, Bring Me The Horizon.

Good job.


Rating breakdown
Performance: 8
Songwriting: 8
Originality: 7
Production: 8

Written by Boxcar Willy | 10.05.2013




Comments

Comments: 16   Visited by: 394 users
10.05.2013 - 16:20
Rating: 7
tea[m]ster
Au Pays Natal
I listened to this a couple of times and the disc went back into the ugly fray that is the cd spindle of burned music. It's prolly at the bottom so I might have to dig it out again. Nice review.
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rekt
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10.05.2013 - 17:37
Zap
Guest
Still sounds like shit to me...
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10.05.2013 - 17:45
Coolingsrock

Count your blessings will always be the only album i'll listen to again and again. no appreciation for their newer releases. Still never checked this one out yet but i'll give it a chance.
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10.05.2013 - 19:36
Rating: 4
Vermoorden

Sounds a million times worse then anything they've ever put out, which is saying something.... Count your blessings is the only decent album.
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10.05.2013 - 21:14
Darth Mitchell
Mitchell
Saw them live yesterday. Didn't know any songs from them, but the sound and the crowd was awesome. While this isn't my genre, I can understand that people like it.
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10.05.2013 - 21:36
koob

You made me give it one more try and all I have to say is... Damn you ! This is an utter emo-teenie piece of shit with shit vocals, same chords all over again and shit drumming... I'm not even sure we've heard the same album.
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10.05.2013 - 22:59
Rating: 8
Horlan

Yeah, haters gonna hate, but it won't change one thing. I don't know their previous releases, but it's hard to say something bad about Sempiternal. Emo-teenie? What, Shadow Moses? Or maybe Empire? Or just post-hardcore textures? Wow, that's an original opinion, really.

And about review - well done
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11.05.2013 - 05:21
Dylan

Still think Count Your Blessings is the only decent output
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11.05.2013 - 08:07
Rating: 4
Vermoorden

Written by koob on 10.05.2013 at 21:36

You made me give it one more try and all I have to say is... Damn you ! This is an utter emo-teenie piece of shit with shit vocals, same chords all over again and shit drumming... I'm not even sure we've heard the same album.


Well said.
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11.05.2013 - 10:31
Rating: 7
pazuzuovbabel
Pazuzu
Some songs remind of later In Flames, generally, they matured a lot than their first albums, really decent album ..
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11.05.2013 - 16:09
Blakheim

Just gave it a try, it's like 30 Seconds to Mars with those pseudo electro tunes, at least for me... catchy at least
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11.05.2013 - 21:25
Rating: 10
matthewlwry@gmail.co

This is one of those albums where "haters gonna hate" is really, really true. People are very, very willing to throw out criticisms that make no sense, as if they've only listened to Count Your Blessings.
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12.05.2013 - 21:10
Absak

Written by matthewlwry@gmail.co on 11.05.2013 at 21:25

This is one of those albums where "haters gonna hate" is really, really true. People are very, very willing to throw out criticisms that make no sense, as if they've only listened to Count Your Blessings.

I used to be a hater but I quite like this album.
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12.05.2013 - 21:11
Cynic Metalhead
Paisa Vich Nasha
Quote:
This kid's got a voice.


That's where i went for a long piss.
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18.10.2013 - 12:00
Rating: 8
Uldreth

Considering you rated Count Your Blessings with a 9 and Suicide Season with a 8, I find statements like:

Quote:
Bring Me The Horizon has made an album that DOESN'T suck.


Quote:
It seems after a few releases of some sub-par material and general band dumbassery.


to be quite weird.

And also Sykes always had good vocals. I say this as someone who dislike the way his vocals sound on Suicide Season, but he always had a very large range and good techniques, and his harsh vocals on CYB were damn good.
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06.01.2016 - 02:42
Rating: 7
Sonic MrSumo

Um...their previous albums don't suck either.
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All the bridges in the world won't save you, if there's no other side to cross to.
- Rock poetry from Silverchair.
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