Can You Feel My Heart – Bring Me The Horizon

Can You Feel My Heart

★★★★★
Bring Me The Horizon
12.57 min • RCA • October 4, 2013
Little Bastard reviews
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Metal is often a very misunderstood genre, and one that’s very difficult to describe to people who consider it to be noise. Just as I find the banality of some bland pop music unlistenable and offensive, so a lot of people pumped with chart friendly fodder feel the same way about the loud guitars, double drums and pained screams of metal. It’s also a genre that’s often seeped in snobbery, and as soon as a band incorporates elements of electronica or pop song writing into their music, they are somehow considered as a lesser band … a sellout. And I was really worried that would happen to Bring Me The Horizon.

Never a band to stay in one groove for too long, their debut album Count Your Blessings was a ravenous assault on the senses, and in the three albums that have followed, Ollie Sykes and the gang have crafted a sound that is always harsh, at points beautiful and furtively electronic. Sometimes unfairly pushed into the music industry created genre of “screamo”, essentially any music that includes excessive amounts of screaming from the lead singer, Bring Me The Horizon’s brilliant musicianship, showmanship and songwriting has often taken a back seat to people’s perceptions of them, especially as the band have experimented with their sound, taking it in and out of the metal genre at the drop of a hat.

The great irony with Bring Me The Horizon is that, whilst some in the metal community may criticise them for going soft, they’re still too noisy and unlistenable for most commercial radio. ‘Can You Feel My Heart’ is a blistering explosion of love, lust and heartache that burned into my soul on my first listen. Like previous single ‘Sleepwalking’, it’s a more melodic affair than most of the band’s previous work, and incorporates electronic elements a go-go, but then Bring Me The Horizon have never been a band to sit on their laurels.

Using Skrillex, among others, to remix songs on their second album Suicide Season before he was the Grammy award winning household name he is today, and indeed using him for the electronic programming on their last album, the game changing There Is A Hell, Believe Me I’ve Seen It. There Is A Heaven, Let’s Keep It A Secret, the boys aren’t strangers to musical experimentation and clearly aren’t afraid fo a little bass either. So it’s no surprise that the release of ‘Can You Feel My Heart’ comes with two remixes, and, I have to be honest, when the remixers involved were announced I may have let out a little bit of wee. The 1st remix comes from Shikari Sound System, the dance music outlet of St Albans kings of Dub-Metal. Enter Shikari, and it’s a ferociously danceable offering. Seeing Enter Shikari live, I’ve been constantly amazed at their ability to to merge dance music with metal so authentically and effortlessly, so they were surely the perfect choice to take this beautifully harsh metal ballad and prepare it for the dancefloor. Shikari Sound System manage to keep hold of the angst that permeates the original song, but give it a massive dancefloor overhall, beginning with layered synths that break into moshpit inspiring dubstep drops, the whole thing making me want to get rowdy and crowd surf the crowded tube compartment I was in on my first listen. Good work, boys, that commute was a lot of fun. The second remix, however, by dark dubstep overlord Jakwob is a much more somber and atmospheric affair. Still with a heavy dubstep lean, but creating a much darker and more experimental soundscape, Jakwob chooses to focus lyrically on the bridge of the song, containing my favourite line

I can’t drown my demons,
They know how to swim –

which puts a different slant on the whole affair, and an almost claustrophobic feeling is created. Reminding me of electronic heavyweights Orbital at their unnerving and paranoid best, this is definitely a more late night experience than the full throttle Shikari remix.

‘Can You Feel My Heart’ is one of my favourite songs of this year, and everything about this package is perfect, from the beautiful artwork to the cleverly chosen remixes and creepy cinematic gore of its music video. If you like this, the band’s latest album Sempitneral, which is the best metal record I’ve heard in a few years, is out now, and is only £5.99 on iTunes at the moment. If you don’t, I hear there’s a new ‘G-A-Y’ compilation that might be more up your street!