Option Paralysis

Technical metal and hardcore scratch very different itches, despite sharing many of the same root-level obsessions (speed, aggression, you know the drill). One's fixated on a maniacal instrumental proficiency; the other strips rock down to a core of primitive blare. Dillinger Escape Plan's 1999 debut, Calculating Infinity, was a game-changing (and copycat-spawning) album because DEP excelled at both halves of the equation. Not the easiest thing to manage. DEP spun arrangements to shame metal's biggest control freaks, but executed them with a raw energy that suggested the whole thing might splutter into instrument-flinging chaos at any second.

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