The Dillinger Escape Plan

The real world is a pretty shitty place.

Over Easter, I took a little time out from my London existence to walk the rural backwaters of Hampshire, not far from where I grew up in a village between Winchester and Southampton. For an afternoon Britain – nay, the world – seemed perfect. Rolling hills, no noise but the barking of a farmyard dog and the shrill crowing of a cockerel. The air tasted sweeter than the finest whiskey; feet treading soft and luscious ground where days earlier there lay only infinite, chewing gum-speckled tarmac. Bliss. Complete, full-sensory perfection. But perfection is an illusion – every day at 7pm Channel 4 shows us so. Every single morning on my hour slog from one corner of this shitty city to its opposite I read about the woes of a world careering dangerously close to destruction. Every fucking day shit, somewhere, hits the proverbial fan. If it’s not money it’s the lust for it; if it’s not war it’s the shit-stirring early stages of it. But who in the world of rock and roll really conveys this ill feeling to the masses? Where are the aural documentaries? Where’s today’s Clash, or Specials? The Others? Fuck right off. Who, now, writes the songs that address the state of these so-sour nations?

Truth be told, not The Dillinger Escape Plan, lyrically at least. But the hostile atmosphere at this intimate show is such that all the images from the news week that was – bombs here, murders there – come flooding back with immeasurable force. This is war made music. This is a test of man’s endurance, of his tolerance for sensory outer limits, just like the daily summaries. Yes, DEP have successfully leapt from the underground that clutched them so close to their tech-metal hearts to mainstream acceptance, hence the numerous youngsters in the audience checking out a band that first released back in 1997, but they remain absurdly extreme. As statements of intent go, throwing ‘43% Burnt’ into the ring five minutes into an hour set is pretty fucking hardcore.

Air burns with the heat of flaming car wrecks playing ringmaster in a circle of bombed-out buildings. Ears ring with a buzz similar to that of one living in permanent close proximity to never-ending armed skirmishes. Greg Puciato is the lynchpin of this assault; his brigade back his yammered vocals up with devastating force. He plunges into the crowd – this is a fucking battle, no doubt. The microphone is wrenched, briefly, from his hand. The kid’s voice drowns in a torrent of chugging guitars and fuck me-fast drums that force the listener into either immediate refuge or come-and-take-me resignation.

‘Sugar Coated Sour’ is pitched; those in the pit run the gauntlet as it chases them through the mind’s backalleys and hiding places ‘til all that’s left is a dead fucking end. Explosion, dust, devastation. ‘Sunshine The Werewolf’ is a live grenade with no specified time before detonation. It’s tossed and we scatter. The brave swallow it down, breathing fire alongside their own flailing windmill arms. ‘When Good Dogs Do Bad Things’ damn near blows a hole through the Earth’s own crust. The aftershocks keep coming...

Lights, silence – the aftermath seems like the most perfectly peaceful time these people have ever lived through. Fallen bodies regain their footing, and stairs are climbed into the night. The Camden night. The shitty night. For a single hour all the rage the media can provide took root on a tiny stage, frustrations and innermost feelings beaten out upon bare chests and through tour-bearded faces. It’s harmless and fun, however powerful it feels, and close to illusion-shattering perfection. DEP are a ‘Perfect Design’, if you will. For a single hour.

And then it’s right back into the shitty real world.