The Dillinger Escape Plan (USA)
Back in the 1930s, an inventive bank robber cut a gun out of a bar of soap and used it to escape from prison. Back in the 1990s, a hardcore band reshaped that incident into a name and used it to shoot itself into the consciousness of the wider public, albeit only figuratively.
A makeshift name was not necessarily an omen of any kind, but has proved to be accurate enough: New Jersey-based Dillinger Escape Plan has always been characterised by sudden fire that's capable of bringing down any musical wall. Creativity and pure energy shake hands in this band's music, as do the genres of hardcore and metal. Last year's top-grade visit by Converge is thus followed by another from the highest possible rank.
Early Dillinger Escape Plan was pure rage and invention that could be a tad too much to anybody but the most rock-hard enthusiasts of the genre. One of these early scatterbrains was one Mike Patton, who ended up as a singer on the band's 2002 EP Irony Is a Dead Scene. Over the last few years, Dillinger Escape Plan's actions have started to move into a slightly more planned direction, with the chaos-theoretical mayhem now moving along a more melodic, even rockier route. Subsequently, the band has found new friends in circles usually adhered to a more sober sort of dynamics, and even got their song in the background of the series C.S.I. New York.
Now in the 2000s, The Dillinger Escape Plan may be slightly more harmonic than before, but is still a far cry from a meek compromise. That fact is visualised at the latest by the quintet's stage show, a perplexingly skilful combination of impeccably precise playing and unstoppable rampage.
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