There are two reasons for the post you are (hopefully) about to read. First of all, I feel I am slowly improving my writing and learning to get to the point and make my statements clear faster. I think and I really hope my posts are becoming more understandable and pleasant for you to read. In this regard, this post is a rewrite of one of the first music reviews I did – shorter, more precise and clear, straight to the point.

Secondly, the band I will be talking about today – Bring Me The Horizon, have been a topic of discussion lately due to their upcoming album scheduled for later this year. Kerrang! magazine dedicated an entire special issue to them with exclusive artwork, photoshoot, and interview, Alternative Press has been talking about them, and most importantly the band themselves are celebrating entering a new era by doing limited edition reprints of all past eras. Trust me you don’t want to miss those. Check them out!

This Is What The Edge Of Your Seat Was Made For beautiful artwork in the trademarked style of Bring Me The Horizon – Sold Out for mere hours

So let’s get to the point

I have talked about Bring Me The Horizon a few times since I started this blog. But let’s face it – they are worth talking about. With a new album on the way, the band is once again dominating the social media with news and speculations and I cannot help myself but use the occasion to improve my review of their Unreleased Demos from 2016.
You can find my original post here and my That’s The Spirit Review here. Enjoy!

The Unreleased Demos

I will do my best to stay away from going deep into my favorite topic – the change of styles bands go through over the years. The case with Bring Me The Horizon is one of the quite drastic changes, which in my humble opinion, is for the better. With That’s The Spirit the band shocked everyone by incorporating jazz tunes and solos, smooth singing by Oli, and way fewer screams, growls, and heavy guitar riffs and drums. Which was what Bring Me The Horizon were actually associated with.

The unreleased demos show the process of creating the entire That’s The Spirit record and let us behind the scenes of what was going on in the heads of the band members. It is quite interesting and pleasant to hear, and it definitely helps us make more sense of the concept around  That’s The Spirit. It also shows that the final result of the album came after a long and complex experimentation and evolution.

The Vibe

I’ve explained it in more detail in my That’s The Spirit Review, but the feeling I get when I listen to Bring Me The Horizon and the energy they manage to transmit with their records and especially with their lives shows gives me the feeling of positive melancholy. In other words, I feel like – I know its all quite fu*ked up and I am not going to deny it, instead I will embrace it. Getting better is a matter of time and attitude, but sorrow and sadness are a necessary step towards improvement. The best thing to do is just embrace those negative emotions instead of trying to deny them, which will prolong the healing process.

Beleive me or not, I feel like Oli is literally trying to tell me to learn to embrace sadness with his songs. That’s The Spirit was labeled A Celebration of Depression for a reason and the Unreleased Demos certainly help the album set its concept, idea, and messages straight and empower them in a great way.

Happy Song Demo

I think it is obvious that Oli and the band have been experimenting a lot with this tune and have started playing with it in order to get the final feeling and sound of the song.

The demo has the vibe of a ”melancholic positivity” present in its sound and faint vocals. However, unlike in other Bring Me The Horizon songs Oli‘s voice is not aggressive and panicked. He sounds quite worried about what he has to face and the fact that “every now and then he gets that feeling“, which I believe refers to the feeling of worthlessness. “And I really wish that you could help…” does not sound desperate and begging for help as in the band’s oldest track which required help franticly and with angst. Instead Oli sings the words in a calm and self-conscious way, knowing that the only person who could help him is no one else but himself.

The demo sets the concept and vibe of That’s the Spirit quite well and manages to show what the band has recently been struggling with. The sound of the two-minute long track manages to convey that emotion of embracing the negative feelings and learning to deal with them instead of giving up quite well.

Plume

Plume is my personal favorite unreleased demo for many reasons. The tune, the flow, the lyrics, and the smooth singing, the song is a masterpiece even if it is only a short demo.  I am inclined to believe it is initially the tune which developed into the record Doomed that made it to the album. It cannot be denied that the tune and vibe of the song really resemble the one in Doomed, especially the opening part and some of the lyrics:

My head is a graveyard
My heart is a ghost
But nobody haunts me like you do
My life is a funeral, so let’s make a toast
I’ll bring you to the brink, I’ll fade into the plume

Quite close to the “The walls are a funeral, I run with ghosts“, interestingly enough the tone of the Plume also matches the one in Doomed.

Blasphemy Heavy/Grunge version

The final demo is a heavier, more impactful and definitely stronger version of the song Blasphemy. Again, it shows that the record underwent a heavy experimentation process and I think the instrumental manages to say a lot about the album, even without any lyrics.

Frankly, I think the demo does portray the emotion and feeling of That’s The Spirit better than the version, which made it to the album, but it is clear that a lot of work has been put into this song. The overall impact has changed, but the song has developed greatly and adding the perfectly selected lyrics for the vibe has completed it in one way or another.

The demo somehow resembles the aggression and heaviness of Sempiternal, which makes me believe this was one of the first songs the band started working on when developing the album.

In only 3 minutes and 33 seconds Bring Me The Horizon not only managed to show how That’s The Spirit evolved during its development, but also incorporated the trademarked positive melancholy into the concept of embracing and dealing with pain in a self-conscious and mature way.  There is quite a lot to say about the topic, the messages, and the overall sound, but feel free to check my That’s The Spirit review for a deeper look and my point of view on the giant mess of hate and unrest. Also, in case you missed the news – Bring Me The Horizon admitted that no one should expect them to do the same thing as in the previous record, which means they are cooking a big surprise and probably experimenting with a new sound a lot once again.  The Linkin Park influence is strong here, and I am personally really excited to say what the band will come up with.

Thanks a lot for reading, let me know what you think about the positive melancholy. Have you felt like this? How do you deal with the negative feelings?

Stay tuned for a really interesting and inspiring interview next week. I got quite motivated by a certain person and I hope I manage to transmit the feeling to you as well.

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