Sempiternal (Expanded Edition) by Bring Me The Horizon Review

Bring Me The Horizon is a band that I quite enjoy in a genre that I love. I don't think that they are perfect, and often times when they have been nominated for awards against other artists who win, I typically agree with the other artists winning. Bring Me The Horizon has also been on a hot streak recently, with their past few albums being some of their best. But what about this one? All the way back in 2013, they released their 4th studio album titled Sempiternal, which is a word meaning ethereal or unchanging. But anyways, let's look into the songs.

Track 1: Can You Feel My Heart

I would say one of Bring Me The Horizon's most well known and iconic tracks, with the synth vocal like intro immediately hooking the listener's ear with something that sounds so unique and new. Something that was hard to understand. This whole album is really a large combination of elements, with the typical hard rock and metalcore elements that BMTH are known for, as well as getting into a more highly produced and electronic sound with their music. An incredible way to make their own voice and style in this cram packed genre by trying to do new things in a exciting and good way. The drums are incredibly punchy with some great production, especially on the massive sounding snare. The guitars are massive and hard hitting, but can also pull back into beautiful tones during the bridge, alongside with some background vocal effects and synth pad sounding things. Building and building with drums and more sounds coming together into a crescendo of hard hitting passion and love for music. More electronic elements with a glitchy, down fade into the final powerful and defiant chorus of this incredible song.

Track 2: The House of Wolves

This song is much more angry and aggressive metalcore that people may expect when they listen to BMTH. This is hard hitting with some epic distorted guitars that are unrelenting and never stop pushing forward in violent, powerful tones and chugs. Along with drums that like the first song, are incredibly well produced with perfect punch and a powerful snare. Most of the lyrics in this song are screamed, or at the very least have a dirty and dark grit to them. The background vocals especially sounding almost like a male chorus are just as dark and good, with the lead vocals being more singing and a register and tone that is perfect. The song goes into a glitchy bridge before hitting the listener with an incredibly powerful and awesome breakdown. My favorite breakdowns are ones that are not just unrelenting, never ending noise with hits and chugs, but ones that give time to breathe and think. Brief moments of silence and rest to not overwhelm or overstimulate. Just incredible sounding production from top to bottom, leading to just background vocals into another chorus, ending just as hard hitting and passionate as it should entail. More beautiful instrumental goodness and the aggressive vocals going as hard as possible. A great and powerful rock song that is incredible no matter when you listen to it. A timeless song.

Track 3: Empire (Let Them Sing) This song starts off unlike the previous ones, in that it is much more subdued with vocals sounding like a speech given to a crowd. Very faint percussion and heavily filtered guitars build underneath the vocals, ending with a great hook in "let them sing" and then kicking off with incredible drums, a beautiful guitar melody, and some powerful background choir vocals gliding across. The vocals come back in with a more subdued instrumental, consisting entirely of a filtered and distorted guitar back in the distance and very open drums with the gritty vocals, going right into an incredible breakdown that is not overly heavy just yet. A song like this having a rather nice and softer one fits, with the music constantly shifting back and forth between intense and pounding to more reserved, softer sides of emotion and artistic expression. A song that sounds like it would fit in perfectly in a movie about a revolution and fighting back against an oppressive system. A leader hoping to help people through violent revolution and wanting their voices to be heard. The mentions of wolves at the door calls back to the song before this, titled House of Wolves. And also mentioning the throne to be surrendered, as their next album had a song called Throne. A very nice and fun look at them possibly planning their future with this song. A great and powerful song that tells a interesting and engaging story within it, while also hinting at a greater one outside of it.

Track 4: Sleepwalking

A personal favorite track of mine, with a digital heavy intro with some glitchy synths and produced, electronic drums suddenly kicking into an awesome hard rock intro with perfectly sounding guitars mixing in with the synth masterfully and some great drums. The vocals come in briefly with just the drums before more chaos and hard music comes in, building expertly to a hard hitting pre-chorus and super awesome chorus. The way he sings and vocalizes the title of the song is so beautiful, sounding full of pain and passion for a very emotional and powerful song. The next verse is even more intense and heavy, a sign that the song is expertly building in a way to keep the momentum moving upwards throughout, not wanting to peak too early or ending on a rough note. A great way to add more energy and hard hitting power into this already stacked album, going into a powerful and emotional bridge. Showing the wide variety and skill of the band, able to combine so many different elements and styles together. But also knowing how to use them and tell different stories, whether it be going fast and hard and heavy, or more laid back and relaxed. A reserved sound that can just as easily pick back up into intensity at any moment, keeping the listener guessing as to the next direction of any song at any possible second going in many possible directions.

Track 5: Go to Hell, for Heaven's Sake

A song that starts off with a powerful, hard hitting intro of intense guitars and drums and some synth elements. It goes on for nearly 30 seconds, which is a little long of just hard hitting music, but it sounds good. The vocals come in and this song sounds one of the most heavily produced, with a whole lot of vocal flairs and effects sneaking in and out at different points, and more long and open guitar tones. The chorus is just as powerful and hard hitting as it should be, but for me personally I am not a huge fan of the way the chorus is delivered in the vocal department. Just a collection of screaming in a weirdly produced way. I did used to love this song, but the more I listened to it the more I have picked it a part in my mind. The music is over top the vocals in parts, as if that was the focus. As if the lyrics that are full of meaning and emotion and power are not seen as the most important thing to listen to. This does lead to a pretty great breakdown with a great guitar solo full of beautiful clean tones and glides over top all the heavily distorted music and then into a true bridge/breakdown of hard hitting wildness. Then we get another point in a song with long open guitar tones and faded, produced drum claps. This song on it's own having it would be nice and intriguing, but the fact that so many songs on this album have it is a little tiring and starting to make it feel like that their ideas of combining elements and styles leads to them repeating ideas and motifs across songs without really thinking about how to properly incorporate them into each one.

Track 6: Shadow Moses

An admitedly beautiful, haunting female vocal sound coming in is so enchanting and gorgeous. The produced drums with a whole lot of faded kicks shows the energy is going to be very high while the vocals are building into something intense and powerful once again. More distorted sounds and strings come in before we are hit with an ABSOLUTELY BRUTAL guitar melody of super distorted and heavy chugs and tones along with incredibly energetic drums pounding away. This song is one of the most unrelenting of their discography, with the drums and vocals coming at you hard and fast without little time to catch your breath. The guitars come in just as fast and wild, making sure you never really have time to truly process for too long. There are nice fills in with distorted guitars only for a few seconds before back into the action with more loud emotion and focus into the craft. They also shout out the title of the album on this song, as if this was meant to be the flagship song of the entire project. The one to make it big. This song is quite a strange one to me. It tries to be super heavy and hard hitting with some unrelenting energy and force, yet is still not anywhere near their hardest songs ever. It is in between their soft and hard output, making it a strange but great barrier into either zone. The song itself is great and fun to listen to, even if it may not be one you could listen to over and over and over again without getting a headache. Still, quite good and beautiful. Especially with the intro and outro.

Track 7: And the Snakes Start to Sing

We go all the way into the opposite direction. A somber, powerful piano melody with some very emotional, barely produced vocals and some filtered electronic drums building slowly into some beautiful guitar tones and background sounds adding with more drums that are sparse and emotional. The song reminds me a lot of Evanesence's song Bring Me To Life, or at leas the version that they truly wanted to make and is on their album Synthesis. Even when there is more "normal" instrumentation for one point, it is still mixed with strings and pianos and fx to create a epic sounding, larger than life ballad. The vocals getting more gritty and darker helps to, truly making it feel like pure emotion and power being at the forefront. The chorus is not really sung, but more spoken slowly, truly sounding rather jaded and emotionless. But it works, as the song tells the story of snakes singing. Of life becoming dark and unfulfilling, or at the very least that is my interpretation of it. It is perfectly in character with the song to "sing" like he does throughout this song. Once again we get just vocals and long guitar tones, which has become quite a common sound on this album. More of the music sounding the same and not experimenting too too much with uniqueness. But it does build to quite the epic, powerful bridge. So much music blasting with his vocals screaming in pure agony and anger. Guitars pounding like drums while strings in the background combine with fx to fill out the soundscape into something that feels massive. Almost world ending.

Track 8: Seen It All Before

A song that goes straight away into the vocals and guitar sounds I have sort of complained about already. I will say that when the rest of the music kicks in, it sounds rather massive and hard in the best way possible. Taking it to a good range of sound before coming down into a rock song that is somewhat cliche and not too common. The uniqueness and character is slightly gone compared to their other music. This song is the only one I can think of by BMTH that I could hear something similar from another band. Something that doesn't do enough to showcase their skill and character. Aside from the lingering vocals that are slow and stretched out across the fast paced music, it doesn't have overly enough to offer. Especially for it's length, as it is one of the longer songs of the album. It doesn't quite have enough to go on for as long as it does, which is strange considering that it is just over 4 minutes. The stretch of slower guitar tones and what sounds like a faint, background strumming of something heavily filtered is not really on for too long, yet it feels out of place. It builds to another loud and hard hitting section before the end, but I feel that the space was not really necessary. It comes back in the outro, but for me it should have only been used there.

Track 9: Antivist

This song, much like House of Wolves is much more hard hitting and aggressive than other songs on the album. Starting off with very fast and rapid drumming plus a distorted guitar melody sounds incredible, but the vocals come in quite gritty and dirty in a way that isn't my favorite. As for this song, it has the weakest vocals of the album for me personally. The music itself is quite great and intense, sounding like something that could easily be the intro of a wrestling show or used in a fight or battle montage of a crazy action movie. It has undeniable energy and vigor, sounding so fun and energetic in a dirtier and darker way. A guitar solo comes in over the chugging and pounding cymbal, sounding like something I would hear in Avenged Sevenfold. The toms come in with some rhythmic hitting over a long guitar tone stretched out and just building and building in a newly unique way for the album. Hitting hard and going on with the undeniable momentum never coming to an end until the song does.

Track 10: Crooked Young

Coming at it hot and fast with rapid strings, pounding high energy drums, and more clean sounding guitar tones and hits is welcome. However I would say that my biggest issue is more the placing of this song. It has an almost identical vibe and sound of Antivist, so having it come immediately after is a bit of a down for me. And I will also say that the chorus is almost identical stylistically to Sleepwalking. It is almost as if it was an alternate take and they made it into its own song. I like this song in a bubble, and it is incredibly well made and produced. But as part of this album, where it sounds so much like many of the previous songs on it is a bit distracting and only takes me out of it. It sounds as if they needed to fill space, which is also evident in that this song is the 2nd least listened to on the entire album if you are to believe Spotify's analytics on it. It has a beautifully composed string section and some electronic percussion, but I would've loved if the song was really just singing over that. Getting more slow and emotional or mixing it up, not just repeating things that worked previously in other songs.

Track 11: Hospital Four Souls

It will be hard for me to properly grade this one, as this is actually one of my favorite songs ever written. The intro is beautifully haunting with what sounds like interview audio. A song that is full of incredibly powerful, hard hitting, true emotion that can be felt before any of the proper music actually kicks off. Just the long tones with the reversed vocals and building ambient pad that leads to distant strings coming in louder and louder, going to silence, and then kicking in with one of the greatest, most iconic guitar chugging melodies I've ever heard. The mixing of the guitar, the massive drums, the background chorus mixing in with the siren like synth all comes together so well. The synth melodies and runs with the super honest and true vocals, sounding like they were barely produced and just given the slightest bit of reverb and harmony coming over some of the most subdued music that they have. Building with awesome drum runs and strings with more emotional lyrics full of meaning. Lyrics that I think about and can't help but tear up or choke up. Going onto a powerful..."chorus" I guess you could call it. The most emotional screaming I've heard with the same awesome guitar melody from the beginning, giving so much energy and hitting. Going into a bridge that has a guitar solo that's just as good over the powerful screaming, intense drums, and really just a large amount of elements crammed together in the best way possible.

We go into another segment with the long drawn out guitar tones, mixed this time with what sounds like piano chords and some marching style drumming in the background. This song I think does the whole segment thing the best, as it truly does fit with this song. A song that sounds like a plead for sanity and almost like the singer KNOWS that he is troubled and doesn't know if he should be saved, or even if he can be saved. The repeated vocals and background choir is just so emotional that listening to it I get close to crying. Repeating the same phrase over and over feeling so incredibly hard hitting. Each loop building into something bigger and bigger and bigger. Going into silence with only four drum kicks, almost to me sounding like a heart beat. That is until it explodes into a massive collision of emotion and power. A song where he SCREAMS in a rather reserved way compared to other songs. He is not screaming from anger, but more screaming in a saddened, begging way. Really, just one of the best rock or metal songs that I have ever listened to, and one of the most emotionally resonant as well. A perfect ending to the (normal edition) album.

Track 12*: Join The Club

Hospital For Souls is the end of the normal album, but I chose to review the expanded edition. Join The Club is a pretty great song that reminds me of My Chemical Romance's The Black Parade album. A bit more of a heavier pop punk sound to me with still some elements of metalcore in there, sounding like a rather great song. As for it's place here, I think it could've been saved and put as a feature track on a future album. It doesn't fully fit in with the tone and style of this one, even if they have another section with piano chords and the vocals trying to force some emotional responses out. It sounds like a rock song that is more cliche than others, as if they were challenged to make a song copying another band or style from the 2000s. I do not think that is a bad thing. In fact, I quite enjoy this song. It just doesn't feel like it belings here though.

Track 13*: Deathbeds

Deathbeds is quite an interesting song. It has a very long intro that sounds quite nice, if a bit subdued. It has loud electronic drums that reverberate in the distance, some faint background pads, and a deep bass once the vocals come in. It is the most stripped back, subdued song that they might have ever done. It has a beauty to it that not many of their other songs do, which is something I would love to hear more of from them. Honestly, this song would have been an incredibly start to the album. Can You Feel My Heart is intense, but I think having this going into it would be super effective and beautiful. An album called Sempiternal and being full of SO MUCH powerful emotion and character should have a soft, somber beginning. Honestly, I'm shocked that this song wasn't on the normal listing of tracks, as it truly is one of their best songs I've ever heard. A super gorgeous and haunting chorus and vocals (alongside a uncredited Hannah Snowden) is so beautiful. The music is still so well produced, but also so much more reserved and subdued than other songs, creating something truly beautiful and epic sounding. A heavenly sound that is so so great and powerful. Truly, a masterpiece.

The album Sempiternal is one that I had listened to beginning to end many, MANY times before but never really in a review mindset or thinking about it other than listening to the songs for my own enjoyment. This album is full of a lot of similar elements. It starts off strong, but begins to repeat and recycle things that worked in previous songs, leading to a lot of them sounding the same. House of Wolves, Antivist, and Crooked Young (along with parts of Sleepwalking) all sound incredibly similar to me. And that is not mentioning the constant repeated thing of the slowed down guitar tones and vocals that became so repetitive to me. A boring recycled idea that was overused for a pavlovian type response. You hear that are expected to be more emotionally vunerable because that's what they went without truly earning it in some cases. I used to love this album and I thought reviewing it would make me love it more, but it has only made me sort of realize the shortcomings of it.

Overall: 6/10