October 22, 1998 - The Dillinger Escape Plan and Under The Running Board

Eight days after my last release a new band joins my library when The Dillinger Escape Plan released their EP "Under The Running Board" on October 22, 1998. But who is The Dillinger Escape Plan? They are a five-piece metal band from Morris Plains, New Jersey and these guys are branching out into some new territory with their style being called either metalcore or mathcore. They consist of bassist Adam Doll, drummer Chris Pennie, rhythm guitarist John Fulton, lead guitarist Ben Weinman and lead singer Dimitri Minakakis. Dillinger don't sound like any other band at this time and it's hard to describe their chaotic style. Let's give them a listen!

The EP opens with a short song called "The Mullet Burden" and it's a perfect introduction as to what Dillinger is all about: super frantic, chaotic and unpredictable riffs and some high, in your face screaming from Minakakis. He's difficult to understand, but his high-pitched screams fit perfectly with the very busy music. The guitars, bass and drums are all pretty damn fast and it's pretty impressive that these guys can play such chaotic music in time with one another. A high-powered intro that makes you really wanna strap in for the rest of the EP! Up next is "Sandbox Magician" and it has some more fast-paced and frantic guitars and while that description is correct, it doesn't do proper justice to the different chaoses that they play. There's a slower part on this one that nicely breaks up the crazy parts and then they oddly end the song on a long and quiet fadeout. Aside from the ending, this was another pretty cool and at the time, quite unique song. Track 3 is "Abe The Cop" and after a slower opening they snap into another super fast riff that at times even makes thrash metal look slow! The speedy guitars sound great to me and Pennie plays a nice drum fill followed by some cool bass by Doll that drives a much more melodic part that even has a bit of clean vocals (though they are nothing special). They wrap things up on a nice note with some more super fast stuff and these guys are just firing off the short but sweet songs. The final track on the EP is a cover of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" and it's played at possibly three or four times as fast as the original! I love it so much! It sounds great sped up and Minakakis screaming the vocals sounds sweet as well! They switch to a funky second verse with both female and clean vocals by Minakakis and it sounds so out of place, but also kinda good! Weinman then plays a pretty sweet guitar solo and then we have another funky part that is a bit heavier and this is a very unique cover that I was not expecting at all!. It's a speedy final verse to finish things off and I thought this was a really interesting and cool cover of a metal classic.

That is the end of "Under The Running Board" and for being just over 11 minutes long, I thought it was pretty good! This super fast and chaotic style which came to be called mathcore sounds pretty awesome to me and these guys seem really tight already. I especially loved the Black Sabbath cover, but the original songs were all solid as well. I look forward to the first full album from The Dillinger Escape Plan!