This Is The End: The Dillinger Escape Plan Prepare To Sign Off With 'Dissociation'

Dissociation noun 

The action of disconnecting or separating or the state of being disconnected.

The word’s synonyms include separation, disconnection, detachment, severance, divorce, uncoupling, split and setting apart. None of which are particularly positive. So when the Dillinger Escape Plan announced plans to use it as the title of their sixth and tentatively final record, it was inevitable that fans and critics would try and dig into the situation further. As most people would. If someone breaks up with their partner and later that day posts on Facebook “I’m really sad”, the assumption is that they’re sad about the split. But you want to know more. Because you’re human.

“There was no fight or juicy detail that people might be looking for,” Greg Puciato says, calmly sipping a glass of water in a hip East End bar. Clad in clothes that’d make a Topman model’s self-esteem plummet, Dillinger’s vocalist of 15 years is far removed from the feral creature we’ll see on stage later in the evening at the tiny Old Blue Last. “There was no calamity,” he adds. “We just grew so much as people between the last record and this one. We tied a lot of stuff up. If you’re operating by feel, you can’t explain it. It just feels right.”

To the more inquisitive among us “it just feels right” might seem a cop-out, one similar to groups with dollar bills pasted across their eyelids and disdain for their bandmates more apparent than ever reforming because “it just feels right”. But not in the Dillinger Escape Plan’s case. They have earned the right to have their judgement trusted.

"I don’t like TV shows that go on until they run out of money and people stop watching."

Since their inception in 1997, the New Jersey natives haven’t really put a foot wrong. Even 2004’s ‘Miss Machine’, the group’s evolutionary second LP and first batch of original material with Puciato in place of Dimitri Minakakis, is now patted on the back with the same reverence as their debut, ‘Calculating Infinity’, and later albums ‘Ire Works’ and ‘Option Paralysis’. And now you’ve lived with the smoother, more melodic grooves of ‘One of Us is the Killer’ for three years, that record totally makes sense in the context of Dillinger’s career trajectory, doesn’t it? So why stop when you’re seemingly at the peak of a career totally unique from anything else in heavy music?

“I was talking to Ben [Weinman, guitars] on the phone one day and the topic just came up really naturally,” Puciato says. “I don’t like TV shows that go on until they run out of money and people stop watching. I like movies because they have a thematic resolve. There’s a beginning and an end: a deliberate artistic choice. It felt more exciting for us, instead of putting out album after album after album, to turn the band into an artistic statement. It makes the entire thing become a closed circle. We controlled the band, start to finish. We made the choice.”

But what about Refused? Misfits? What about the bands we thought we’d never see again who have since emerged from their slumbers (to varying degrees of success)? Well, on one hand, you’ve got the Faith No More reunion. On the other hand, you’ve got pretty much everyone else. Originally described as an extended hiatus, the upcoming Dillinger parting of ways has since been slated as a break-up by Puciato. Even the men behind the wheel can’t be sure if the engine will start up again.

“Saying ‘never’ is a silly thing to do,” Puciato says. “You’re putting yourself in a corner by saying that. I’m aware that it’s a possibility that one day we might decide to do it again, but we don’t intend to. It’s like saying you’ll never get back with an ex-girlfriend. You never know for sure, as silly as it might sound. You have no fucking clue where you’re gonna be in five or 10 years. I just know that right now it feels correct.”

The split sucks. No two ways about it. But the record Dillinger are going out with is quite the full stop. ‘Dissociation’ wanders further down the path first discovered on ‘One of Us is the Killer’, ramping up Puciato’s earworm melodies while simultaneously revisiting old territories and fearlessly cocking a leg and pissing upon new ground.

Jazzy mathcore madness makes itself known during Honey Suckle’s first half, while Sick on Sunday, from ‘Ire Works’, is recalled in Fugue’s trickling electronics. The industrial thud of ‘Miss Machine’ makes a welcome return for Nothing to Forget before slithering into a sickeningly gorgeous orchestral section. You’ve also got some serious guitar hero work on Low Feels Blvd and on Manufacturing Discontent Puciato rips up the script to recall the bare-bones, spontaneous vocal feel of letlive.’s ‘The Blackest Beautiful’.

“I used a lot of different mics, I went off mic a lot,” he says. “Manufacturing Discontent, that was the only part of the record that I almost second guessed because it’s so out there vocally.” The section he’s referring to was recorded with the vocalist 10 feet away from the microphone. “I didn’t know if I should keep it but someone else convinced me,” he adds. “That was the one second where I steered away from my instinct.”

‘Dissociation’ is, truthfully, head and shoulders above this year’s competition. And, even if the poignancy of the split wasn’t still an open wound, the record’s ending would amount to a chilling, heartbreaking climax. But coupled with the Dillinger Escape Plan’s imminent demise? It’s tough. The title track is the most emotionally engaging the band have ever been. Closing the record with it was another move on Puciato’s part that, while maybe not directly linked to the break up, accentuates its hold over the record.

“We always end our records really aggressively,” he says. “I felt like it might be nice to have this crescendo of aggression in the middle of the record, then have it gradually fade out like a dying star. Even at the end of the title track, everything fades away except for the vocals. It felt natural to strip things away over the course of the last two songs until it was as bare bones and minimal as it could be, instead of some cacophonous big bang.”

"I felt like it might be nice to have this crescendo of aggression in the middle of the record, then have it gradually fade out like a dying star."

Even though Puciato seems so level-headed about it, the idea of Dillinger not being around anymore is such an alien concept. Whether you heard about them thanks to Puciato shitting in a bag on stage at Reading in 2002, their penchant for breathing fire over the crowd or tales of various members - with Puciato and Weinman currently joined by Kevin Antreassian on guitars, bassist Liam Wilson and drummer Billy Rymer - sustaining X number of injuries over the years, the Dillinger live experience is a state of being that’s never the same on any two given nights. If you’ve seen it, you know. If you haven’t, do so immediately. You have never seen anything like this before and when they’re gone, that’s it. It’s over.

It isn’t a ‘stage show’ resembling something a band like Slipknot will replicate across arenas for three months. Sure, sometimes Dillinger have glitchy graphics exploding in the background, but nothing’s ever really planned. It’s five men going primal scream and yet it never detracts from the music. That’s an approach taken from hardcore legends Bad Brains and perfected; one that’s gone on to influence bands like Heck, letlive. and other artistically aggressive performers.

We’ll worry about those bands carrying the torch once Dillinger are gone for good, but for now there’s still a full ‘Dissociation’ touring cycle to get through. UK folks recently had a couple of chances to embrace the chaos before the album run truly begins – once at the 150-capacity Old Blue Last in London and again on the Pit stages at Reading and Leeds.

The former was a flurry of limbs tangled in one heaving mass, with Dillinger’s frenetic majesty unleashed in what might be described as a vivarium. Instruments were flung around at random, while heads were stood upon with scant regard for the brains inside. “It doesn’t really hit you until about three or four songs in, when you realise that you might actually have a stroke,” is how Puciato puts it.

On the flip side, the Reading show channelled an odd vibe. It was still brimming with white-hot rage, with Weinman nearly decapitating a photographer with his guitar on several occasions, but Puciato performed half the set from a sofa in the middle of the stage, reading a newspaper and sipping tea as veins bulged from his forehead.

“I hate festivals,” he says, possibly explaining his defiant, settee-bound performance. “It’s like a giant commercial. I’m sure Metallica love doing festivals, because that’s a regular show for them. When you’re a kid, you think it’d be amazing to be on this giant stage playing to a sea of people, but in reality I’d much rather play to 200 people that give a fuck.”

And those who do give a fuck will be out in droves during the tour’s duration, paying tribute to one of the best bands to ever do it. The Dillinger Escape Plan will die a satisfying, dignified death rather than end up like every other act past their sell-by-date. But surely the intensity will be something Puciato will crave in future?

Apparently not. Dillinger’s end doesn’t scare him. The opposite, in fact. His other band, the Black Queen, has run in tandem with his day job for some time, providing the singer with just as much glee, albeit in the form of smoothed-out, Depeche Mode worship rather than a scorched earth.

Weinman, meanwhile, recently unleashed the Giraffe Tongue Orchestra album alongside Alice In Chains’ William DuVall and Mastodon’s Brent Hinds. Then there’s always Killer Be Killed: Puciato’s scattershot supergroup alongside Soulfly’s Max Cavalera and Mastodon’s Troy Sanders. So maybe Dillinger’s demise won’t be the solemn occasion we’re envisioning.

“It becomes a giant weight lifted from everything,” Puciato says of the doomsday clock. “Everything’s not so serious. We’re having a lot more fun off stage than we’ve had in years and I’m certain this has something to do with it, being more appreciative of time or whatever. Time is only as valuable as how finite it is. If you knew you were gonna die tomorrow, every second you had would suddenly become a lot more precious.

"If you knew you were gonna die tomorrow, every second you had would suddenly become a lot more precious."

“One of two things will happen: I’ll be done with Dillinger and I’ll be really burnt out on doing aggressive stuff, or I might feel the need to still do aggressive stuff and find another outlet for it. I have no idea which it’s gonna be. Or I might just be fuckin’ tired and have a lie down. Maybe I’ll take a year off and fuckin’ hang out in Africa or Vietnam or something, just fuck off for a year. It’s gonna be a bit of a shellshock to stop after what will be, at that point, the Dillinger Escape Plan being the most important thing in my life for nearly 20 years.”

Dillinger are about to close the curtain on one of the most vital, important chapters in modern music. It’s been a bizarre, terrifying ride and their records still make less sense than reading Gravity’s Rainbow on a rollercoaster, but that’s the beauty of them. They’ll never make time to be figured out, remaining elusive and pretty much inexplicable. That’s possibly the greatest compliment you can give a band that’s been under public scrutiny for nearly two decades: they’ve given us so much but it’s still unquantifiable.

“Sometimes you poke through and it’s so surreal, like being on stage with Nine Inch Nails or someone in Metallica tweeting about you,” Puciato says. “But over time, the Dillinger Escape Plan gets less about songs, shows and accolades and more about looking at these guys and being like, fuck man, I can’t believe we took it this far. We were unlistenable.

“When we played for System of a Down in the UK, people were just booing us, not understanding what we were doing at all. I remember selling out a 150-cap room and that being a gigantic deal for us. Like, fuck, I can’t believe there’s 150 people here to see us in this city we’ve never been to before! The moment we’re in right now is probably my favourite we’ve ever been in. We’re starting to look at one another with this weird reverence. Instead of being pissed at each other, we just look at each other and we’re like…fuck man, we’re kinda badass.”

'Dissociation' is out on October 14 through Party Smasher Inc/Cooking Vinyl

The Dillinger Escape Plan Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:

Wed January 18 2017 - NORWICH Waterfront Norwich
Thu January 19 2017 - GLASGOW QMU
Fri January 20 2017 - MANCHESTER Academy 2
Sat January 21 2017 - NOTTINGHAM Rock City
Sun January 22 2017 - BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute
Mon January 23 2017 - CARDIFF Tramshed
Wed January 25 2017 - LONDON O2 Forum Kentish Town
Thu January 26 2017 - BRIGHTON Concorde 2

Click here to compare & buy The Dillinger Escape Plan Tickets at Stereoboard.com.

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