aRternative

As you have probably guessed from the stepping stones of our common path here at aRternative, your humble guide is a huge collector of less-known musical delicacies usually from the darker side. I am also one of the very few remaining specimens of a species that is threatened by extinction: the music buyer. In our Internet and download dominated world, some might find it weird or at least unusual that the words 'buy' and 'music' are placed side by side in the same expression, but I can assure you that there are creatures out there that are ready to give money for their beloved audiodreams. Most of today's human population would regard me insane upon knowledge of the ridiculous amounts of money I "occasionally" spend upon certain musical outbursts, but all of us have our very own insanities, don't we?

I am obsessed with the packaging of cds and words like digipak, digibook or box set. I can sit and hold a new release in my hand examining it thoroughly for 20 or 30 minutes before even opening it. If I have something new, I usually carry it in my bag for a week, just to be able to touch it or take a look at it every then and now. I know, I'm obsessed.

My latest object of obsession is the new full-length of a highly influential and unique band: The Dillinger Escape Plan. Their previous album, Ire Works, released in 2007, is one of the most musically and technically complex pieces of art I've ever encountered, yet it carries surprisingly deep emotions of the truest kind. Thus, I was anticipating the release of their new opus and have been hunting for any information about it as early as last December. "Obviously", I preordered it as soon as the title, Option Paralysis, was announced. Even more obviously, I preordered a very special and limited box set edition, containing a surprising amount of creative and cool but totally useless paraphernalia.

When it landed in my mailbox one day after the official release date, I couldn't wait to get home and lay my hands on it. The unwrapping and opening of the box is always a ritual, so it has been now. (If you go to youtube, you can find lots of videos of uncoverings of various expensive devices like iPhones, BlackBerrys, cameras and whatsoever. I'm not that crazy, I just took a photo of the box before opening.) I marvelled at every little detail of this massive and uniquely designed, innovatively built box. It is divided into four rectangular canister-like partitions and two flat ones. The four small partitions each encase pieces of the aforementioned paraphernalia: a huge flag, a beanie hat, a luggage tag, five pins and a TV-B-Gone, each having the The Dillinger Escape Plan logo. 

Perhaps this final one needs some explanation. A TV-B-Gone is a small keychain remote control with one button that is capable of switching almost any annoying TV anywhere on or off. One of the two flat partitions contain the actual album on a disc that is special in itself, one side of it being a regular compact disc, the other being a traditional vinyl containing a bonus track titled Heat Deaf. The other flat part of the box contains a picture book, which was very confusing at first. Each and every page has almost the same images on it, and I was beginning to wonder whether it was misprinted, when I noticed the word 'flip' on the first page. As it turned out, the book is a flipbook, like the images we used to draw on the corners of our notebooks in secondary school and which yield a primitive motion picture if flipped through fast enough. This flipbook gives a fragment of the music video for the first track, Farewell, Mona Lisa. (Those, who can't endure the first 10 seconds of the actual song should jump to 1:53.)

You must be really curious about what sort of music is inside such a luxurious, creative and complex packaging, and I can assure you that the music itself possesses each of these features. It is usually labelled mathcore orr jazzcore but probably these genres don't mean a lot to you. Well, it is a rather challenging task to descirbe the band's music for lay people, but I'll try my best. Upon first listening, it sounds chaotic and meaningless to the extremes, but that is what yields it attractive power. You have to listen to it over and over again to get to know it. It is mostly built up of elements of extreme metal, classic hardcore and jazz, but traces of electronic or acoustic music can be found in it as well. It paints a very diverse and aggressive picture if you don't delve deep enough into it. After 8-10 listenings, it starts to open up and give out its real emotional values. The singer, Greg Puciato's voice is unusually versatile, ranging from totally insane and throat-killing screaming to incredibly high-pitched and soft clean vocals. One of the best songs to represent this diversity is Widower. The lyrics of songs like Endless Endings, Widower, I wouldn't If You didn't, or Parasitic Twins are painfully true and sung by Puciato... I sometimes find tears slowly running down my face. But yeah, it's just the wind.

I warmly recommend Option Paralysis (or at least Widower and Parasitic Twins) to anyone who seeks emotional journeys and is willing to take the time to tame this insane beast built around fragile bones.