Dillinger songs won't leave you contemplative, nor should they try to. Dillinger wants to take your ears on a trip. Their selling point has always been their mind-boggling time-signature calculus, their ability to handle the most complex polyrhythms and tempo shifts, which is awe-inspiring to listen to.
So it's strange that Dillinger would title their latest album Ire Works. If Dillinger played faster or louder, they still would never be as "irate" as John Lennon was when he sang "Working Class Hero" with just his guitar. Calculating Infinity, the band's debut, shows what happens when musical mathematics threatens to swallow the musician. There's no room for emotion on that record, and that's what makes it frighteningly intriguing. Ire Works, like Miss Machine before it, finds the band trying, and failing, to inject something human into their detached, inorganic sound.
After one listen, it's apparent how much this record mirrors the last. "Fix Your Face" and "Lurch" run into each other to make for one insanely syncopated, vocally incoherent opening suite that seems to say, "We're back to rocking your face off!" Sure, "Fix Your Face" suffers from a hokey chorus ("You're like a deer in the headlights, baby!"), but it's promising nonetheless.
Promises were meant to be broken, though, and, like Miss Machine, Ire Works quickly hoodwinks you with a slew of forced horizon-broadeners. Take "Black Bubblegum," for instance. Maybe the band intends to be jarring by sticking this right after "Lurch" without some intermittent palate-cleanser. This pop-friendly, industrial new-metal track (complete with sleazy-uncle vocals that were already annoying with Faith No More) is supposed to prove that Dillinger are open-minded or something. Same goes for "Dead as History," a Nine Inch Nails-meets-generic alt rock number that fades into an a cappella ("I'll hold on to this forever /That is never long enough"), a chorus more annoying than haunting.
But nothing's quite as egregious as the laughably titled "Milk Lizard," which finds the band macho-ing out ?? la Motley Crue. With an inexplicable horn-section and lyrics about women with "sweat coming off of their heels," this track stinks of throwback and hairspray.
The closer, "Mouth of Ghosts," is commendable for its vision. A total change of pace for the band, the song is an epic build-up of jazzy percussion and pianos playing Eastern melodies. But it feels a bit long by the six-minute mark.
There are some highlights: "Nong Eye Gong" and its book-ending instrumentals come together as a pretty successful centerpiece. And "Party Smasher," with its rapid, snaking riffs, showcases the band's incredible musicianship as well as anything they've done before. But the best moments are all rehash. Hell, "Nong Eye Gong" even shamelessly plunders the jazz-break from "43% Burnt," arguably their best song.
In the end, it's really tough to fault Dillinger. Their album Calculating Infinity took metal to the furthest reaches of sensory intensity, and the band knows that. It's normal for them to want to branch out and stake out new ground.
But they're forgetting what they're good at. They're inclined aesthetically: They make fascinating, ornate sound-sculptures to be admired, not empathized with.
