Suicide Season

Suicide Season is the second studio album by British metalcore band Bring Me the Horizon. It was released on 29 September 2008 in the United Kingdom and Europe]through Visible Noise. The band signed a licensing deal with Epitaph Records on 11 September 2008, with the label releasing the album on 18 November 2008 in the United States.

The album shows a major change musically from their previous releases, abandoning their original deathcore sound. This would also be the last album to feature Curtis Ward on rhythm guitar. The band later released a two disc special edition of Suicide Season which features various musicians and producers remixing tracks off the album, entitled Suicide Season: Cut Up! This was released on 2 November 2009 in the United Kingdom through Visible Noise and on 12 April 2010 in the United States through Epitaph.

Suicide Season spawned four singles ("The Comedown", "Chelsea Smile", "Diamonds Aren't Forever" and "The Sadness Will Never End"). The album debuted on the charts of five countries. Critically the album received a mixed response. Though praised from the musical shift from the style of 2006's Count Your Blessings, the album was criticised for its song writing and musical aesthetics.

Background and recording
After the release of band's first studio album 2006's Count Your Blessings the band began experiencing an extremely hateful reaction from fans to their music. They cited that very few publications featured them and in drummer Matt Nicholls' opinion the band had gather strong hatred from 'proper metalheads'. For example, when the band supported Killswitch Engage in 2007 the crowd began throwing bottles at the band before their set had even started. When preparing the music for Suicide Season vocalist Oliver Sykes and lead Guitarist Lee Malia agreed that this record would be the "make-or-break" factor for the band and that it had to be different from Count Your Blessings.

Suicide Season was written recorded in Arboga, an isolated Swedish village with producer Fredrik Nordström. Lead vocalist Oliver Sykes described Arboga as "Nowheresville". Sykes considered the isolation Arboga provided as ideal in comparison to the constant activity in Birmingham, the recording location of their first album: "We recorded Count Your Blessings in the middle of Birmingham and it was very easy to get distracted. Arboga is a village with nothing in it apart from a tiny shop and that was it". In during the initial recording of the album Nordström initially was absent from working with the band, in Sykes perspective he drew his own conclusion based on Count Your Blessings. However he turned up midway through their recording process and was shocked by the music they had written, and from that point became more involved in the recording process. Nordström also taught the band some basic levels of recording and production so they could work through the night. By the end of the album he said it was "one of the best CDs he's done in years".

Whilst in Arboga the band caused a controversy and lit an unlit, prepared bonfire in the middle of the forest, they were put in the local paper for destroying a pagan celebration.

The album features guest appearances from vocalist JJ Peters of Deez Nuts, Sam Carter of Architects and Luis Dubuc of The Secret Handshake. {{#tag:ref|Sam Carter flew over with Rock Sound photographer Tom Barnes.

Musical style
Suicide Season departs from Bring Me the Horizon's previous deathcore sound, the band has been credited as starting to adopt a more eclectic style and move into a more "straight-up" metalcore sound. In an interview with Metal Hammer magazine, Sykes states that this album is "100% different" from Count Your Blessings. He also says: "We experimented a lot more I think, more with other styles of music we all enjoy, using different instruments and technology, by bringing a lot of digital stuff to the table. Every track is different." Because of this drastic change in sound from Count Your Blessings they experienced a massive fanbase shift.

Sykes has stated that the band was better focused when in the studio, which made it easier for them to experiment with song writing and to expand their sound: "We didn't really have any other band we wanted to sound like or any other style. We just thought we'd try to do something different and see what comes out. And this is what came out."

The remix album Suicide Season: Cut Up! style has a range of different genres. Oliver Sykes in Interview states that "There's not a song on there that really sounds like the original. What's great though is the diversity of each song. There's dubstep to hip-hop, electro to drum and bass." The dubstep style of the record has been acknowledged in tracks from Tek-one and Skrillex while the hip-hop elements are found in Travis McCoy's remix of Chelsea Smile. Benjamin Weinman's version of "No Need for Introductions..." is considerably the most unique with its incorporation of industrial music.

Release and promotion
Visible Noise Records produced a site dedicated to the promotion of the album. It featured a clock counting down to 29 September (the album's release date), and a scroll-over page in which the visitor can reveal an image of the album's artwork.

The band also put a countdown to the release of the album in the United Kingdom. They also headlined in the United Kingdom, Europe, and the United States. The support acts included The Red Shore, Deez Nuts, The Secret Handshake, Dead Swans, The Legacy, Misery Signals, Johnny Truant, The Ghost Inside, and Confide. The album was release on 22 September through Visible Noise.

The first promotional video from Suicide Season was released on Tuesday 12 August 2008 on the Visible Noise Myspace, entitled 'The Comedown'. On 15 August, "Chelsea Smile" was released on the band's MySpace page.

It was announced on 27 August 2009 that Bring Me the Horizon will be releasing a remixed version of Suicide Season, titled Suicide Season: Cut Up!, and was released in the United Kingdom on 2 November 2009 and was later released in the United States on 12 April 2010. The origin of the album concept was that Oliver Sykes asked a friend to remix one of their songs, and the band was very pleased with the end result so the band decided to have all of Suicide Season remixed. Musicians and producers featured on the album include: Ben Weinman from The Dillinger Escape Plan, Skrillex, L’Amour La Morgue, KC Blitz, Utah Saints and Shawn "Clown" Crahan from Slipknot. Guitarist Lee Malia noted how they compiled the release to fulfil a contractual obligation to re-release the album.

Track listing
All lyrics written by Oliver Sykes and all music composed by Oliver Sykes, Matt Nicholls, Curtis Ward, Matt Kean, and Lee Malia

Personnel

 * Bring Me the Horizon
 * Oliver Sykes – Lead vocals, keyboards programming
 * Lee Malia – Lead guitar
 * Curtis Ward - Rhythm guitar
 * Matt Kean – Bass
 * Matt Nicholls – Drums


 * Additional musicians
 * JJ Peters - Guest vocals on "Football Season Is Over"
 * Sam Carter - Clean vocals on "The Sadness Will Never End"
 * The Secret Handshake - Samples on "Chelsea Smile"


 * Production
 * Produced and mixed by Fredrik Nordström and Henrik Udd
 * Mastered by Peter In De Betou, at Tailormaid, Sweden