One of Us Is the Killer is the fifth studio album by American mathcore band The Dillinger Escape Plan
Review
In the earlier part of their career, the Dillinger Escape Plan's sound was
a glorious frenzy of unfathomable aggression and musicianship, with the band
mashing disparate parts together to create something akin to a puzzle made up of
pieces from random boxes that, somehow, made a complete picture. Now over a
decade out from the savagely genius Calculating Infinity, the band has been
continually refining its sound into something that, while still musically
interesting, feels sharper and more focused. The results of this refinement
shine through on the band's fifth studio album, One of Us Is the Killer. While
some hints of the kind of math-metal and prog the band previously trafficked in
still linger, the album has a more visceral and in-the-moment feeling, so while
there are still plenty of time signature and genre changes scattered around the
album, they end up feeling more like spontaneous fits of aggression than
intellectual exercises. This shift toward playing to the listener's gut rather
than head gives the Dillinger Escape Plan a newfound level of accessibility
without diminishing the impact of their punishing sound, and though it might
seem like they're smoothing out the edges of their sound and turning their
swords into plowshares, the reality is that they've just turned it into a
different kind of weapon, proving themselves once again to not only be one of
the most innovative metal bands of the last decade or so, but a band that seems
truly capable of doing anything. Gregory Heaney – AllMusic