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As heady as their music can be, it's best to not overthink your approach to the prog-metal blitzkrieg of New Jersey's Dillinger Escape Plan. But I had questions as I shoved my way into a sold-out-as-fuck Dante's on Oct. 26. Why was the soon-to-be-defunct group chose such a tiny venue for this stop of their farewell tour? And considering the close quarters and the relentless, pulverizing nature of their music, would I leave with a head wound?
As anticipated, the show was a torrent of good-natured violence—both musical and physical—that rarely let up. A dazzling explosion of LED lights backlit the band as they took the stage, and within seconds the crowd was thrashing in time with "Limerent Death" and "Panasonic Youth." The former, which opens this year's swan song Dissociation, finds vocalist Greg Puciato doing a serviceable impersonation of the sleazebag yowling Mike Patton offered when he briefly held the frontman job on 2002's Irony Is A Dead Scene EP. He's more than capable of holding a tune on record, but the staccato screaming that careens headlong into the oddly sing-song endings of "Farewell, Mona Lisa" and "Hero of the Soviet Union" is the most compelling outcome of Dillinger's 20-year evolution. No one would consider crowd favorites like these "easy listening," but the group's ability to write actual songs you'd sing along to in your car is there if you're looking for it.
For a band so notoriously abrasive and unapproachable to outsiders, the number of anthemic and uplifting moments that emerged from the carnage was a pleasant surprise. As the bedlam of closer "43% Burnt" wore down and guitarist Ben Weinman crowd surfed his way back onto the stage, the answer to why Dillinger chose to pack-out a bar as small as Dante's emerged in a tender scene that may have been lost at a larger venue.
"This is the part where we say we'll see you next time," Puciato said, "but there won't be a next time."
I emerged unscathed. Your window for getting a black eye at a Dillinger Escape Plan show is officially closed.
All photos by Thomas Teal.
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