Bring Me The Horizon-There Is A Hell (Metalcore) (3.5/5)

Bring Me The Horizon. Those four words can single handedly create mass hysteria. To some, they are the finest thing since sliced bread. To others, they are a fucking abomination that needed to be aborted. I myself fit in between the two categories. Of their past two releases, I despised debut Count Your Blessings, but did not really mind Suicide Season all that much. Other than the one major fucking problem of the vocals of on Oli Sykes.

This man is known for his terribly whiny, shouty style of screaming, that started on their first album, but only got worse on Suicide Season. Well, this has not really changed on this, their third album, There Is A Hell, but it has not got any worse either. On some songs on here, he is just about tolerable, on others he damn nearly kills the songs single handedly.

Another problem the band has always had is that their guitar riffs always come off sounding like the same riff with a slight variation, and that problem is also present here. From Crucify Me to It Never Ends through to Alligator Blood right through to the final track the Fox and The Wolf, their is very little variation in guitar work.

However, their are actually positives to this album. The first half of the album is full of some decent tracks. Crucify Me features one of Oli's finest vocal performances ever, Anthem is incredibly catchy, It Never Ends is just flat out fantastic, Fuck has that immortal last minute with the duet between Oli Sykes and the singer of You Me At Six.

However, it is Dont Go where this album really finds its best aspects all come together. This is the track with the most different sound to it. To begin with, Oli sounds as terrible as always. However, give it time and you may notice the real power and emotion behind his vocals and lyrics on this song. Guest star Lights, a pop/electronic singer, makes one of her contributions to the album on this song, and it really works rather well. The duet between her and Oli is one of the best moments of the album.

There are also some rather piss poor songs on here. Memorial, the instrumental track, lasts for three minutes and goes absolutely fucking nowhere. Visions suffers from being too fucking long, and Blacklist is the absolute low point of this band. Yes, its worse than anything from Count Your Blessings. It takes 20 seconds to actually start, and even when it does start, you wish it hadn't. The studio editing on Oli's vocals is the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard, the lyrics are shit, and the guitar work is the worst on the album. This song really is utterly terrible.

Album closer The fox And The Wolf and Blessed With A Curse are two fantastic songs, that really do give this band a decent amount of respect from me. Those two songs are a fine way to end this album, and almost make up for Blacklist and Visions and Memorial. Almost, but not quite.

All in all, this release is not that terrible. In fact, it is above average. The good songs on this album (Dont Go, Blessed With A Curse, It Never ends, Fuck etc) are all fantastic numbers that are a joy to behold. But when this album sucks, it really sucks. The guitar work is bland, and the fans of this band need to realise that they are in fact worshipping mediocrity. A slight improvement, but not much. 3.5/5