British metalcore group Bring Me The Horizon released its highly anticipated sixth album, amo, last Friday. The band’s roots lie in the underground screamo and metal/punk scene of the 2000s, but it’s undergone a reinvention as it tapped into mainstream success.
Thematically, amo revolves around a new romance found by frontman Oli Sykes in the wake of his divorce in 2016. While he sings about both loss and hope on the album, he also takes time to address the band’s hardcore fanbase who long for heavier music. On the track “heavy metal” in particular, Bring Me The Horizon delivers a tongue-in-cheek letter to its past and future incarnations as a band.
BMTH’s debut album, Count Your Blessings, was released in 2006. It was characterized by fast-paced drumming, heavy guitar instrumentals, and screamed vocals aligned with the genre known as deathcore. With each successive album, the band expanded its sound to incorporate more melody and structured songwriting.
The group’s breakthrough 2015 album, That’s The Spirit, was largely inspired by a desire for musical growth and Sykes’ personal battle with drug addiction. He was also tired of screaming all the time, as he told Australian outlet The Music.
amo is the second album in this new phase of BMTH’s career. On “Heavy Metal,“ Oli sings:
And I keep picking petals
I’m afraid you don’t love me anymore
‘Cause a kid on the 'gram in a Black Dahlia tank
Says it ain’t heavy metal
(And that’s alright, that’s alright)
The line is a reference to stereotypical fans who spends their time online complaining that bands should just stick to their old material. He later refers to this kind of fan as “some kid from A&R in a Patagonia.“ Sykes also refers to US death metal band The Black Dahlia Murder, who shared a common aesthetic and fanbase with BMTH in the punk/metalcore scene of the 2000s.
Keyboardist Jordan Fish explained to Kerrang! that the song is an ironic nod to their past. “The title is completely ironic—a nod to how we’re completely not heavy metal,” he said. “There’s a little five-second clip at the end of the track that’s the heaviest we’ve sounded in years.”
This cross-genre experimentation is a common theme throughout the album. “Heavy Metal” has elements of drum and bass, and even a beatbox interlude provided by Rahzel of The Roots. Elsewhere on the album, there is a dark synthwave collaboration with Grimes (“nihilist blues”), Sykes employing hip-hop’s near-ubiquitous triplet flow (“why you gotta kick me when i’m down?”), a romantic power ballad (“mother tongue”), and electronic and ambient instrumental interlude tracks.
amo is diverse and leagues away from the breakdowns and screams upon which the Sheffield five-piece built its reputation. Sykes posted on Instagram that fans are “well within your rights” to hate this album. However, the band refuses to conform to negative attitudes towards artistic evolution, and seems happier than ever to have moved away from its “heavy metal” past.
Read all the lyrics to Bring Me the Horizon’s “heavy metal” on Genius now.
