ONE OF US IS THE KILLER

'One of Us Is the Killer' is the near-perfect, exhaustively eclectic and dizzyingly intricate fifth studio album from The Dillinger Escape Plan as the band seemingly goes "further down the rabbit hole" of experimenting within the possibilities of their very own niche sub-genre of metal music and letting their now-dominant alternative and art rock edge to take over the stylistic direction of the music. The result is a daringly artistic rendition of the mathcore beginnings of the collective, now completely converted to a sprawling progressive metal crossover filled with a variety of ambitious compositions, excruciating riffs, hyper-technical rhythms and layers of phenomenal vocals as this album marks one of the best performances of Greg Puciato, who has in any case commented how laborious the recording of the vocal parts for this album has been. It seems like the band had let themselves loose on this one with the programming and the effects, which are used rather craftily, all to the amelioration of the songs.

One might consider all but the final third of 'One of Us Is the Killer' as the perfect symbiosis between the aforementioned elements - the unbound heaviness, the rattling aggression of the genre, and the band's very own (and very progressive) take on it. The more avant-garde nature of the album reveals itself with the opening track 'Prancer', this is a sonic havoc of a song that utilizes very interesting guitar effects following the generally unusual structure of the song. The dense and technical playing continues on 'When I Lost My Bet', while the title track offers a more industrial sound. 'Hero of the Soviet Union' is grim, quirky and deranged, followed by 'Nothing's Funny', a song so catchy and memorable you might mistake for a pop song had it not been for the swiveling heavy guitars. Two more intriguing songs follow, offering different and exciting variations of the DEP formula, followed by an instrumental track with a title in cipher. It is towards the end where the album loses its audacious grip, which does not compromise the overall coherence and integrity of the work, which remains among the best of the respective decade and a high point of the band's discography.

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