There’s no denying that Bring Me The Horizon has paved the way for not only one, but several musical styles and eras. What once started as one of the heavier and heartfelt bands, their new sound from the album “That’s the Spirit” opened up for a whole new wave of fans and influenced a lot of the heavier bands to follow in the same footsteps. Their style of composing results in a grand and anthem-like sound that makes both the listening experience and live performances something that could otherwise be hard to find.
Have you been listening to all of Bring Me The Horizon’s albums thousands of times and find it hard to find new and similar bands? Let’s dive into 5 bands that sound like Bring me the Horizon!
List of Similar Bands to Bring Me The Horizon (BMTH)
1. PALESKIN
Right of the bat, I could almost tell you to stop scrolling and spend a good amount of time delving deep into the sound and musical atmosphere that is PALESKIN. The band successfully blends top-quality produced instrumental elements together with a deeply emotional vocal performance that touches its listeners on a personal level.
It’s not without shame that PALESKIN aims at reaching inside of the listeners’ familiar places of darkness and have truly understood the connection between music and emotions.
No matter how many similar bands you can find in this genre, PALESKIN without doubt reach far beyond the competition. The production value, the composition, and the melancholy and catchy melodies tie the knot to a band with a very bright future ahead.
Bring Me the Horizon fans would do themselves a favor by giving their current discography a listen-through.
With soaring clean vocals delivering an outpouring of emotion, the vocal performance is what truly makes their first record Joy is Temporary, Pain is Constant stand out from the rest.
Thematically, PALESKIN’s first record hones in on the distress and defeatism of a dark place: “Joy Is Temporary, Pain Is Constant is about all the pessimism you get from years of depression and anxiety, nothing seems to get you forward and when you get some kind of feeling of joy it gets taken away from you in seconds just to leave you in your own head of dark thoughts once again”.
Have a listen by visiting Spotify through this link or through the embedded Spotify media player.
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5eKP3s5CJQOYL65VzunrN1?si=NkU-H_4LR4mhi9JdZclo1Q&dl_branch=1
2. I PREVAIL
If I PREVAIL deserves all the attention after the sudden spike in popularity from their cover of a Taylor Swift song – remains to be discussed. At least it’s a band that isn’t trying to hide that they’re not trying anything else than being a pure metalcore band.
Their album “Trauma” might have gotten a tremendous amount of listens on Spotify, but somehow still lacks originality and even if the first song “Bow Down” gives you some hope, the song “Paranoid” is all over the place and from there it’s pretty much as good as it gets.
Don’t get me wrong, the band has more fans than many bands dream of and if you are into Bring Me The Horizon – I PREVAIL could be something right down your alley!
3. WHILE SHE SLEEPS
WHILE SHE SLEEPS is, just like Bring Me The Horizon, a British Metalcore band formed in 2006. And just like BMTH, the noticeable anthem-styles and heavy riffs define the sound. WHILE SHE SLEEPS aren’t shy of experimenting with their sound either, as you’d be presented with both powerful piano leads and occasional rap-metal.
WHILE SHE SLEEPS are a band of the fans – meaning they work through their own fan-funded record company. Their 2017 release You Are We were an incredible achievement in songwriting and has become a metalcore classic. Even though the follow-up releases didn’t quite meet up to the same hype, the band continue to experiment and evolve as musicians and as a band.
Well, what would they offer someone looking for a Bring Me The Horizon alternative? They are definitely on the heavier scale of things, and if you’re a fan of the newer releases this might not really fit in your bag. WHILE SHE SLEEPS are also a bit more “jumpy” in their sound and even if they do their best with creating the same melancholy and heavy sound – they might feel a bit blander.
4. BAD OMENS
BAD OMENS even goes on the record comparing themselves to Bring Me The Horizon. And while I’ve never actually tried to analyze the lyrics behind BMTH, the lyrical content presented by BAD OMENS is clearly revolving around despair, mental health struggles, and addiction. In the band’s most recent releases, you can find influences of the Hillsong UNITED and other gospel production, which clearly helped brighten up the thematic palette.
“It’s about a very intense and unhealthy relationship I was in, but we wrote it in a format that’s universal to all bad habits. More specifically, it’s something you can’t let go of even though it’s not good for you—whether it’s a relationship, a drug problem, or a terrible situation. You’re addicted.” – Noah Sebastian
The style of BAD OMENS could be much appreciated by the early adopters of Bring Me The Horizon, as their sound has kind of mellowed out over the past releases.
5. ARCHITECTS
It’s hard not knowing who ARCHITECTS are if you are looking for similar bands to Bring Me The Horizon. Listening to some of their earlier stuff, their music could be more described as rhythmically complex compared to some of their previous releases. Shortly following the release of their seventh album, All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, in 2016, guitarist and main songwriter Tom Searle died after three years of battling skin cancer.
ARCHITECTS joins the club of being yet another British Hardcore band and surpasses a lot of similar bands in the amount of Spotify plays they have.
While you could easily say that ARCHITECTS could be counted more to the “djenty”-side, which is a genre Bring Me The Horizon yet have to experiment with, the similarities arise when comparing the anthem-like and anxiety-loaded themes they have in common.
Read about bands that are similar to Architects here
Bands Like Bring Me The Horizon
The list of bands that sounds like Bring Me The Horizon could be made way longer. However, I tried focusing on some bands that I myself started to listen to when I ventured out to new bands to listen to. What all these bands have in common though is the way they succeed in putting their emotions on such a display – not only vocally but musically as well.
Tuned down guitars, blasting drums and powerful synth melodies is just a few of the characteristics of things you might be looking at while finding bands in the same style as Bring Me The Horizon.
Whats so Special about this Sound?
At first, Bring Me The Horizon was just another one of the early 2000’s hardcore bands with fast-phased drums and aggressively strumming guitars.
But from the addition of a full-time keyboardist Jordan Fish, it was clear that Bring Me the Horizon was no longer all about guitars and an aggressive approach but were to add a more melodic layer to their sound. Which they did, from moving to the super-heavy hardcore, into their more anthem-like metalcore, through the album That’s The Spirit, they moved into the rock sound that changed the modern rock culture immensely.
If you take every album release from Bring Me The Horizon separately they might just pass off as another good album by a talented group of musicians. But what Bring Me The Horizon has done is far greater than that. They showed the world that it’s okay to evolve – and that change is constant.
It’s okay to musically mature as long as you put the same amount of heart and love into what you do. Fans come and go, and that is also completely okay.
The old fans can listen to their old stuff, the new fans can listen to their new stuff and the true fans can listen to it all! It’s truly the liberation of musical progression.
Why have bands copied Bring Me The Horizon
The Bring Me The Horizon Effect has of course been adapted by many bands. While She Sleeps release the album So What?, and has the same fuck-all-the-rules approach. While I’m not a fan of that release myself, I understand what they are trying to do. Even the album title is trying to tell their listeners that they have the courage to put themselves out there. The question is – is this something that you could overdo?
Other cookie-cutter hardcore bands also seem to struggle with following the success of the Bring Me The Horizon effect. Parkway Drive, Architects, and Beartooth are all bands that seem to be straining against expectations of what might be expected of them. It’s hard to find the balance of trying to evolve their sound while trying to avoid being placed in a “sellout” category.
And let’s face it, some bands are not even that good at switching things up. The flip side of this equation is that some bands might try and adapt this approach just for the merits of it, or it could be a thing forced upon them by a record company. Using this method as a way to save decrease in popularity could be as fatal as it can be successful.
I mean, you also have the bands that either don’t care about change or faced the fact that they have a recipe for success already. Let’s take Children of Bodom as an example. Every song they release is just as predictable as the day is long – but noone cares!
Paleskin is the Next Bring Me The Horizon
Let’s not stress this enough. PALESKIN has the brightest future of them all. An up-and-comer that has, in just a bit over a year, being able to release a bunch of quality music. But not only that, they seem to be creating a sound of their own, influenced by bands such as Bring Me The Horizon, Chase Atlantic, and Nothing Nowhere.
We see a lot of similar bands to Bring Me the Horizon originate from either the coast of the US or from England. PALESKIN, however, have their roots in the south of Sweden. While Sweden might be known for other metal bands such as Soilwork, In Flames, Ghost, and Refused, PALESKIN seems to revolutionize the sound of what might become Swedish Melodic Metalcore.
Frequently Asked Questions
Some bands similar to Bring Me The Horizon are Paleskin, Chase Atlantic, Bad Omens, and While She Sleeps.
Different bands continuously tour with Bring Me The Horizon, but some recent bands are Pvris, You Met at Six, and Nova Twins.
The word “copy” should be used with caution. Bring Me The Horizon is a very influential act that has until this day not been afraid of pushing the limits in what they can do genre-wise. With the success of many of their previous album releases, some kind of recipe for success was created and has been adopted by many bands.
I don’t think they even care or appreciate being placed in a genre. But as the music scene has progressed, they have been moving from hardcore over to metalcore with a lot of anthem-like influences. Previous records have been seen more as pure rock, considering the heavily driven synth-leads and some might even say that the most recent releases touches the Pop-genre.
Would be really cool to see Paleskin going as a supporting act to Bring Me The Horizon!!!! Love from Vienna