#4: The Dillinger Escape Plan - Under the Running Board [EP]

This is easily the shortest CD I have ever purchased. Obviously, it's an EP, but its three tracks go by in just over seven minutes. But if there's one thing the Dillinger Escape Plan can do, it's stretch time. Even in a song that scarcely tops the two-minute mark, there are still numerous time changes and distinct parts swirling about in the chaos.

The second track, "Sandbox Magician," is 2:31 in length, but feels more like six minutes by the time it's done. And at 3:12, "Abe the Cop" might as well be outright prog. It's sharp, grating, and over quickly. Kind of like death by multiple stabwounds.

This only the second piece of DEP music I own that features original vocalist Dmitri Minakakis, and I still don't like him as much as his replacement, Greg Puciato. There's something more emphatic and weighty about Puciato's delivery, and his sense of melody is infinitely stronger. The OG fans tend to stick with Minakakis to retain street cred, but I'm with Puciato.

I've only seen the Dillinger Escape Plan once, but it was easily the most intense show I've ever been to. The band walked onstage pretty casually, counted off clicks, and as soon as they kicked into "Panasonic Youth," everything became a blur - my first coherent visual was Puciato, with a mic in one hand and screaming away, holding the mic stand above his head with the other, brandishing it like an axe and chopping at the audience like so much lumber. It was the only show I've attended where I felt concern for my safety as a result of the band, not the meatheads in the crowd. By the last song, "Sunshine the Werewolf," Puciato - whose biceps are comparable to bowling balls - was hurling his huge vocal monitor into the front row of the crowd. I'm amazed people come back from these shows in one piece. Slipknot shows might as well be Dashboard Confessional sing-a-longs.

"The Mullet Burden" live. Ignore the first 50 seconds, that rubbish isn't on the album track - it's just 91 seconds long.



For good measure here's a glimpse at the unpredictability and disorder of a typical DEP show. This is at the Virgin Megastore in Times Square. It's not a track from Under the Running Board, but it's a taste of what it's like to feel real fear at the hands of a rock band.