Bring Me The Horizon was right when they said, “It ain’t heavy metal and that’s alright.”
Their new album, Amo, was released on Jan. 25 and it was their first album to reach No. 1 in the United Kingdom, their homeland.
As much as the band conquered most of its fanbase with its heavy metal and death-core music, in Amo it took a leap and tried new sounds and genres. Of course, Bring Me The Horizon didn’t fail in one thing that they are the best at — causing controversy among fans.
The band’s sixth album starts with I Apologize if You Feel Something, a really electronic song with just a bit of vocals, a really wise choice for a first song, since it introduces the listeners to what the album is going to be like.
Apart from the songs that were released beforehand and everyone already knows, such as Mantra, Wonderful Life and Medicine, the rest of the album can be really challenging for those who wanted the classic old Bring Me The Horizon back. But if the fans leave that aside and are open to listening to the album as it is, one thing is undeniable: the band took the right step.
The album has its highlights, such as Sugar Honey Ice & Tea and Heavy Metal (feat. Rahzel). While Sugar Honey Ice & Tea is probably the heaviest song in the album when metal meets pop, Heavy Metal is basically the opposite.
“The title is completely ironic – a nod to how we’re completely not heavy metal,” explained the vocalist Oliver Sykes to Kerrang! “There’s a little five-second clip at the end of the track that’s the heaviest we’ve sounded in years.”
The track basically lets the listeners acknowledge that the band knows that some of the fans will totally despise their new phase, but that doesn’t really matter to them.
So I keep picking petals
All I wanna know: Do you love me anymore?
‘Cause some kid on the ’gram said he used to be a fan,
But this sh** ain’t heavy metal
(And that’s alright)
— from the song Mother Tongue, by Bring Me The Horizon
Another really interesting track is definitely Mother Tongue. The song is the apex of the pop genre in the album. The love song is probably the softest the band has ever sounded and is dedicated to Sykes’ new wife, the Brazilian model Alissa Salls.
“Vocal-wise it’s quite a big song,” Sykes told Kerrang! about Mother Tongue. “There’s a little bit of Portuguese in there, which is quite unusual. It’s kind of a big, anthemic song. It’s probably as close as we get to something like Drown on this album. It’s a love song, so it’s an emotional one.”
The reality is that Amo is definitely a high-quality album with very interesting and risky songs, but it is a hard pill to swallow for those who are stuck in the death-core past of the band. Bring Me The Horizon took a chance to change their sound and did their best with the situation.
Either it will please fans or it won’t.
