this band and me had a long time coming. this release in particular, but from the beginning of the story. of course i heard the name the dillinger escape plan been thrown around several times, not for nothing they have been one of the most influential bands of the genre and beyond. when they dropped their latest and final full length "dissociation" i checked out a few songs but had a problem with the singer's rather high pitched screams and so i walked away for other stuff. somewhere along the way i got to talk to a good friend of mine who asked me about the dillinger escape plan and my thoughts on them. he found them very creative and highly enjoyable. with this recommendation i re-visited their music.
i chose "ire works" to check out, probably because of the somewhat cool artwork. i listened to this album in one go and was pretty impressed. there were still a few parts that i found to be difficult but the overall impression was very good. ok, then i searched for vinyl options. "ire works" had been generously re-pressed by relapse in 2015 and 2016, so it wasn't an issue to get a coloured copy. the problem was to obtain the colour i wanted, which was the pink and dark red merge variant. it was pressed on a shit load of 1500 copies but only my third order was successful.
the first copy i ordered had a sleeve damage and the second had a mistake in the description and was actually the aqua blue re-press from 2016. in the end i bought my desired copy from a seller on discogs. the colour-way looks lovely and goes nicely with the cool minimalistic artwork. musically this a wild journey through punk, hardcore, jazz and metal. an outstanding release of that genre people call mathcore and one of their most critically acclaimed. listen to pearls like "black bubblegum" and my favourite "horse hunter" (feat. brent hinds from mastodon). congratulations to ten years of "ire works". relapse records. party smasher inc. 2007/2015.
