Bring Me The Horizon Approaches Friendship With a Bite

Seethe much Bring Me The Horizon? There's not much calm and serene behind the brand new "True Friends". To the band's credit each note is maximized for long term effectiveness. Drums explode resoundingly. Vocals scream untamed vengeance. Guitars thrash around mercilessly. This bunch lets its impressions be felt upfront. On the lyric sheet you'd swear Oliver Sykes had never heard of turn the other cheek. Confessedly I have never heard of being stabbed in the front before. Big cheers to Bring Me The Horizon for laying claim to something nobody else has done before, at least not to my knowledge. As usual love gone terribly wrong takes its turn in the spotlight. A profound case of coulda, woulda, shoulda runs rampant over the lyric sheet, specifically "It's kind of sad cause what we had well it could have been something". Naturally you need your drummer to lose his inhibitions at the door if you expect romantically spiced wordplay to take flight to an appreciable degree. Does Matt Nicholls ever make good on his end of the business arrangement. Lee Malia's guitar playing meets and then exceeds expectations for awesomeness. Nothing about "True Friends" bides its time in the slow lane. Oliver quickly points out the object of his rage has plenty of nerve but no spine to speak of. I'd like to introduce the idea that this concept of "nerve" vs. "spine" hasn't popped in contemporary song spinning before. Ollie uses hate as gasoline to fuel his dreams. Sounds like a move lifted from Eminem's playbook. Flame has been stolen so be on the lookout. Of all band members contributing Matt serves up the loudest bang on the Richter scale. Pound for pound his banging matches then exceeds expectations. Thankfully the video runs to the straight low tech end of the spectrum. I claim thankfully because were "True Friends to embrace a stage concept video the fury might be too much to tackle. Oliver refrains from Cookie Monster vocals, the kind metalcore employs to grizzly effect but he does sniff out air space in order to screech out his discontent. Rhythmically the soup stirs to a rolling boil. You could contend it's worth a pronounced sniff. Not much room to come up for air because the vitriolic salvos come hot and heavy. No doubt about it...friendship runs low on the tonality chart here. Riding alongside "True Friends" reminds me of trying to catch up to a sled that's already rolling down the mountain at breakneck speed. The song should light the fuse of rage for all scorned romantics of both sexes. "True Friends" has that enemy's glare in its eye and that's what will keep you shivering long after the track concludes.