The Dillinger Escape Plan: One of Us Is the Killer (2013)

Everybody’s Got One . . .

A new release by The Dillinger Escape Plan is, at this point, not really an opportunity to write an album review. Not a necessary one, anyway. The event is essentially the catalyst for everyone to voice their already well-established and strongly-held opinions, which fall into one of three camps. One, the people who don’t get it and don’t care. Two, the people who think they were great at Calculating Infinity but they began to suck more than any other band, ever. Three—and this is where I’ve pitched my tent—the people who love what they’ve been doing for approximately the last decade.


I don’t even really like hardcore. Occasionally I listen to an EP, but it mostly washes over me and I don’t get a lot out of it. But there’s something about DEP. Their insane combination of harsh, inaccessible, rule-breaking hardcore and pure pop accessibility appeals to me on a very deep level.

Between Ire Works and Option Paralysis, the band underwent a seemingly small, but important evolution. IW had the band bouncing back and forth between the hardcore and the pop with stark shifts, but OP blended the two styles seamlessly. That is no small feat. One of Us Is the Killer does not contain any such evolution from its predecessor, but instead is a minor refinement at most. It still contains the pure, vitriolic chaos (“When I Lost My Bet”) and the sing-along goodness (the title track), with no new twists. When you are operating on the level of DEP, and doing something that no one else is doing, you don’t really need to evolve. And since they are still operating on a very high level, I think we’ll all be quite content.

But you already have your own opinion, and you probably think mine stinks.

The Verdict: 4.5 out of 5 stars