“Keyhole romances keep the artistry in surveillance.”
I’m a huge Dillinger fan. Ever since I discovered them as a young lad back in 2009 (thanks, Saints Row 2), despite my ability to quite comprehend what I was hearing being… limited, my 11-year-old ears loved “Milk Lizard” for all of its wacky glory. This love only grew throughout my teen years, only to be heartbroken as the band called it quits in late 2017. In the years since, the individual members of Dillinger have gone on to do some fantastic stuff, though. Vocalist Greg Puciato went on to put out some great solo material, alongside another Killer Be Killed record just two years ago. Guitarist Ben Weinman has joined legendary hardcore outfit Suicidal Tendencies, as well as work in other sectors of the industry.
Today, though, we’re talking about Billy Rymer. The famed drummer, and the backbone of Dillinger’s insane rhythmic makeup, has certainly been busy. Alongside joining metalcore outfit END, Rymer formed thoughtcrimes, a chaotic, mathcore-esque project that seeks to bring out all of the primal, mathy fury of Rymer’s Dillinger days, whilst also injecting a more unique flair into the mix to provide a truly modernized mathcore sound. It almost goes without saying that, given Rymer is involved, that their debut full length, Altered Pasts is, in a word, mental.
While replete with all the dissonant, chaotic sounds you’d expect from Dillinger alumni, there’s also something else going on here. Opening numbers “Panopticon” and “Mirror Glue” demonstrate a chunk of what’s to come here, with the more chaotic mathcore elements, alongside some tasteful electronic production to provide moments of necessary texture and respite, we see the emergence of what sets Altered Pasts apart much later in the album with highlights such as “New Infinities” and “Deathbed Confessions”.
See, where Altered Pasts truly stands out, is in its ability to combine contrasting elements with the high-energy mathcore sound in a way that feels natural and cohesive. Of course, a certain level of discomfort and disconnectedness is an expected and known quantity in mathcore, but throughout all of Altered Pasts’ sonic twists and turns, it doesn’t skip a beat. Be that with the sludgy, downtempo and post-metal inspired breaks in songs like the aforementioned “Deathbed Confessions” and “The Drowning Man”, or with the surprisingly gorgeous melodicism contained within masterful closer “Lunar Waves”, as well as mid-album cut “Hai un Accendino”.
Each and every member of the band pulls their weight on Altered Pasts, but there’s something about the performances of both Rymer, as well as vocalist Rick Pepa that I find so electrifying. Perhaps it’s the frenetic nature of their performances, effortlessly gliding between highly juxtaposed styles with seeming ease. Or perhaps it’s the breadth of the individual elements contained within those performances, ranging from sublime and subdued, to raw, chaotic and downright pissed, with each element being as strongly executed as the last.
Altered Pasts is a chaotic, varied thrillride that pulls masterfully from the worlds of mathcore, post-metal and shoegaze in a way that feels cohesive, but, perhaps more importantly, fun. The pure breadth of the sonic palette across this record only adds to that key element of chaos, as you truly can’t know what to predict when going from song to song. Rymer’s performance is predictably world class, but vocalist Rick Pepa, as well as guitarists Brian Sullivan and Russ Savarese, and bassist Cody Hosza all provide stellar performances across all of Altered Pasts. This is an electrifying debut from a band that will surely go on to do amazing things in the world of heavy music.
9/10
Altered Pasts will be available this Friday, August 26th, via Pure Noise, and you can pre-order the record here.