September 25, 2004 - Bring Me The Horizon and This Is What The Edge Of Your Seat Was Made For

Four days after my last release a new band joins my library when Bring Me the Horizon released their debut EP "This Is What The Edge Of Your Seat Was Made For" on September 25, 2004. But who is Bring Me the Horizon? They are a five-piece deathcore band from Sheffield, England consisting of lead singer Oli Sykes, lead guitarist Lee Malia, rhythm guitarist Curtis Ward, bassist Matt Kean and drummer Matt Nicholls. Bring Me the Horizon play an extremely heavy style that is definitely death metal, but they also mix in a bit of groove and breakdowns from the hardcore style. Let's see what BMTH is all about!

The EP begins with "RE: They Have No Reflections" and they jump right into some super heavy guitars and Sykes shows us right from the get-go that he can hit some super high screams! As the pace increases Sykes shows us that he can hit some low screams as well and all the guitars and bass are splendidly heavy the whole way through! Malia mixes in tons of super high, dive bomb-esque guitar parts and they complement the mostly super low and sludge-y guitars very nicely. Words don't do proper justice to just how heavy these guys are! What a way to introduce yourself to the world! Up next is "Who Wants Flowers When You're Dead? Nobody" and they dive right into another heavy main riff with Sykes sticking mostly to his high screams. His low parts are solid as well, but much more monotone, where his high parts are excellent with Sykes hitting notes all over the place and sounding so visceral! Ward's rhythm guitar is nice and heavy and Malia plays all kinds of sweet lead guitar parts on this one as he comes in and out with bits of pretty awesome shredding! There are several different sections in this five minute song, some are slower and some are a bit faster, but they are all super heavy and awesome! Another very good tune! Track 3 is just called "Rawwwrr!" and it doesn't take then long at all to reach the first breakdown as it feels like you're being thrown across the room just a few seconds into the song with some slamming, uber heavy riffs. This whole song, as the name might suggest, is relentlessly heavy and Sykes sounds pretty scary (scary good that is) belting out some super high screams while Malia leads the way with some erratic and pretty cool guitar. Words fall short when it comes to this much organized chaos, but these guys are really good at what they do, and they're just starting out! Malia mixes in some catchier, groovier guitar in a couple spots and there's a fantastic breakdown towards the end where they slow down Malia's once shredding riff to a painfully slow crawl and it sounds pretty fucking heavy and pretty awesome! The long fadeout to end it was a little bland, but otherwise another great song! The final song on the EP is "Traitors Never Play Hang-Man" and Malia is playing some distorted and cool lead guitar right away as Sykes screams nicely overtop the heavy rhythm section. This song is probably the most accessible to a mainstream listener, but only because of a couple more hook-y parts, the rest of it is still uniquely heavy with Malia playing lots of different short guitar riffs. There's a weird marching part with Sykes just talking that isn't my favourite, but then it's right back to the heaviness and then the fadeout is suuuuper slooooow moooo and super distorted. Sykes is just screaming his head off with no music behind him by the end and this was a pretty awesome way to wrap things up I'd say!

That is the end of "This Is What The Edge Of Your Seat Was Made For" and I thought it was a phenomenal debut EP by Bring Me the Horizon! All four songs were relentlessly heavy and these guys put a wonderful, unique spin on the metalcore genre, spearheaded by some great lead guitar by Lee Malia and Oli Sykes being a super heavy and wicked vocalist. I can't wait to hear their first full album!