Album review: Bring Me the Horizon – POST HUMAN: NeX GEn

By DAN SOUTHALL

WE all know Bring Me the Horizon started life as deathcore scenester also-rans with a sound people clung to early on, then evolved, arguably hitting peak performance on Sempiternal. Then they pushed their musical boundaries and the tastes of their fans, getting ever more pop-orientated until the lockdown era that saw them begin to claw back some of their forgotten heavy history. This new release tries to follow both tracks: the poppier elements and a misdirect back toward their heavy material.

Post Human: NEx GeN is heavily indebted to studio trickery that will make it difficult to replicate in the live setting. But by now the band use so many backing tracks –  so what is a few more? This is evident from the opening of “YOUtopia” with its lush melodies and the best clean vocal of Oli Sykes’ career, assisted by all kinds of different vocal tricks that aide the melodic focus.

Next up is “Kool-Aid”, one of the few tracks on the album that lets the vocals go right back to the band’s roots, even if it is only for a few bars. It creates a warm fuzzy feeling that with scare your mates who don’t know the band’s history.

As much as the old heavy head in me wants to dislike this album, that has been made very difficult. There is something buried not far from the surface that keeps the listener engaged. The pop-metal formula is rich here from a band that in their own strange way helped create whatever this is, from the Deftones-esque “Limousine” and its descent from dream-like state into heaviness before female vocals come in and tie it all up into a neat bow of melody that you will be humming tomorrow. Or there’s “A Bullet W- My Name On’, which is a perfect example of where modern Metalcore has gotten, ably assisted by Underoath. The Britpop of “n/A” shows yet another side to the creative forces that operate within the band currently.

Somehow BMTH have built an album that, although far from perfect, does not have on it a track you can skip. There is on show at one time or another every musical influence the band has. As I sit here listening one more time and writing, I find myself trying to have a discussion with those around me what is going on. And whilst we all agree it’s good, none of us can nail exactly what it is. The biggest gripe we can come up with is the ridiculous nature of the spelling of the album tracks, especially frustrating when you must type them out more than once.

But there you have it: if you have never been a fan of this band this will only appeal to you if you hear it sight unseen. If you have only checked them out across the last couple of releases, there will be more than one surprise in here. Most importantly if you tried to grow with the band and couldn’t get past some of the poppier drivel over the last few releases, there is something here for you without doubt.

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