One of Us Is the Killer

Background

Greg Puciato indicated that he chose the album title "pretty much as soon as I finished writing [the] song" of the same name. He explained that the meaning behind the title involves "a lot of issues on the album relate[d] to co-dependency and unknowingly destroying a relationship and taking responsibility for that and not pointing outward. The chorus of the song says 'one of us must die, but the killer won’t survive.' In a relationship, you're both fifty percent at fault. It's about accepting responsibility instead of directing it outward."

Puciato arrived at this view as a result of "two really critical relationships in my life that were under a lot of strain" while the album was being written. He acknowledged that the relationships were with guitarist Ben Weinman and his girlfriend, which he described as in "a state of turmoil" and "unhealthy".

Recording

Prior to recording One of Us Is the Killer, the band essentially constructed a studio around its practice space. Vocalist Greg Puciato noted that the album "took a lot longer" to record, with the band members recording their respective instruments on consecutive days rather than alternating: "This time we did it traditionally and everyone tracked their instruments in succession. So I spent 25 days in a row recording vocals," said Puciato. He explained that this helped him to concentrate on how he delivered the vocals:

I thought it would be a real detriment, because after three or four days I would start to sound different. But it was the opposite. For some reason, being able to completely immerse and not poke your head out every two or three days really allowed us to go down the rabbit hole and keep the microscope on the vocals without having to switch gears. I think we ended up with better vocals because of that.

Promotion

In contrast to their previous releases, previews of material slated to be on the album prior to its announcement were scarce. The band announced the album title and cover on their Facebook page on February 18, 2013. The first single from the album, "Prancer", was released on the iTunes Store, Google Play, and Amazon MP3 on March 12. On April 1, the band shared a preview of the album on Facebook, released by the label on YouTube on March 31. An official music video for the second track, "When I Lost My Bet" was released on YouTube on April 23, 2013. The album was streamed in its entirety on May 12.

Critical reception

One Of Us Is the Killer achieved widespread critical acclaim. Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has received an average score of 79, based on 10 reviews. Gregory Heaney of Allmusic, giving the album 4 out of 5 stars, commented on the album's accessibility (without the band leaving their signature sound), saying "This shift toward playing to the listener's gut rather than head gives The Dillinger Escape Plan a newfound level of accessibility without diminishing the impact of their punishing sound, and though it might seem like they're smoothing out the edges of their sound and turning their swords into plowshares, the reality is that they've just turned it into a different kind of weapon.", while Jacob Royal of Sputnikmusic gave the album a rating of 4.1 out of 5, stating "One Of Us Is the Killer is easily the most sprawling piece of work The Dillinger Escape Plan has created yet."

Public reception

One of Us Is the Killer was very well received by the public. On Rate Your Music the album has an average rating of 3.57 of 5, based on more than 1,450 ratings, and on Sputnikmusic the album has an "excellent" average rating of 4.0 of 5, based on more than 1,500 ratings.

Track listing

All lyrics written by Greg Puciato; all music composed by Ben Weinman.

Personnel

One of Us Is the Killer personnel according to CD liner notes.

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Additional musicians

Production

Artwork and design