I suspect I’ve got issues because I’m always wary of albums with nine three/four minute tracks and a thirteen minute track at the end. Seeing the band’s name being written back to front didn’t impress me either, but benefit of the doubt and all that, the promise of “progressive djent deathcore” was appealing.
And wow … what a fizzing intro “Erratic” turned out to be. There’s even a harp-like sound as Make Me A Donut deliver their promise. Flamboyant guitar lines and deep djentiness mingle with colour and pure death vocals – it’s exciting, thrilling even and is like a fast moving motion picture. Better still, lofty sounds and deep and meaningful vocal lines fit in with the juddering djent rhythms. Progressive patterns are interrupted by a short and surreal section. I was reminded of Make Me a Donut’s Swiss compatriots Kehlvin. But there is irregular and dynamic prog-djent to be played, and thus it continues. Somewhere lurking is that deathcore and it comes out a little on “Valar Morghulis”, but now a jazz bass enters the scene briefly before the prog-djent takes up the reins and takes us off to new and exciting places. “Hope is a broken hourglass hissing along the see-through wall”. Make Me a Donut enter a surreal world on the first part of a trilogy, the dreamy instrumental “Awareness”. Dreamy that is until the thunderous and irregular djent join the sounds of whales and bells. The second part “Knowledge” ratches up on the ferocity. After a sound-enhanced spoken part, a technique which the band use across the album, the track enters a dark yet emotive phase. This is the first time I was aware of any emotion. The drum patters exotically as a tense and edgy soundscape develops on “Imagination”. The guitar takes on a jazzy element. Above all it’s exhilarating. Tracks fly by seamlessly yet each one has character, imagination and originality. “Elusion” has a great emotive vocal line but the strength of this album is the all-embracing experience as heavy djent lines are the backbone to this prog-inspired musical adventure. And so to the thirteen minute “Between”. It starts with a colourful Latin jazz rhythm. A prog-djent passage leads us into another eccentric and surreal spoken passage. Then it stops as we go through the rigmarole of the secret track, which amounted to waiting ten minutes for five seconds of noise at the end – why?
The nonsense of the secret track apart, my initial superficial fears were unfounded. Make Me A Donut have not only originality but a sense of how to make music exciting and dynamic. As a listening experience and exercise in sublime progressive djent music, “Bright Side” is sublime.
(8/10 Andrew Doherty)
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