REVIEW: Bring Me The Horizon - POST HUMAN: NeX GEn

Hot on the heels of the Church of GenXsis experience at Download Festival, the POST HUMAN: NeX Gen release was much anticipated - until it was delayed with no anticipated release date, just “soon” is what we heard. 

The Bring Me The Horizon (BMTH) tour, which kicked off in January 2024, brought about excitement as the crowd were given a sneak listen to some tracks whilst being offered the chance to chant vocals to the tune of "Hello Oli, you fucking knobhead!" which ended up featuring on NeX Gen. The album dropped at midnight - so was it worth the wait?

NeX Gen boldly strides into uncharted territories, blending the BMTH signature metalcore intensity with a daring mix of electronic and experimental elements. It could be suggested that this album is a testament to the band's relentless innovation and fearless evolution, offering listeners a visceral yet refined auditory experience. However, long-term fans may question whether the absence of Jordan Fish has positively or negatively impacted on the music… but we’ll leave that up to personal preference. 

Each track serves as a unique narrative, weaving together themes of dystopia, resilience, and the human condition, all while pushing the boundaries of typical genre conventions. NeX Gen is not just an album; it's a pioneering journey that takes the post-apocalyptic despair from POSTHUMAN: Survival Horror and works in feelings of hope, with a euphonic, post-hardcore-inflected stripe, while still bursting with forward-thinking creativity. 

“Let’s begin” are the first words we hear on the album, and:

“Hello user, this is M8, your personal multidimensional friend. It looks like I have encountered a fatal error. Please boot me using the safe mode and enter the serial number located on the side of my head. For more information go to”

After which, the sound crackles ominously as the sound loops back to track one – “let’s begin”. 

A full circle moment which can be left open to interpretation – did we boot into safe mode and reset the error thereby restarting the album or have we reached a critical point where the genre is changing, and another new era is due? Or perhaps this is another teaser for another digital treasure hunt? The latter is certainly true, given the website set up for M8 which teases additional music, and provides clues for relentless fans desperate to understand the lore that BMTH are laying.

With multiple easter eggs, and very little time between release and writing, it’s impossible to have picked up on all of them but the transition between R.i.p (duskCOre) mix into AmEn! really gives a whole new meaning to AmEn!. In fact, it’s worth mentioning that every song transitions beautifully into the next in a very Meteora style – you can definitely pick up on different strands of musical intertextuality. For example, the first half of the album has undercurrents of Deftones running through the track fibres, with liMOusIne nodding to Swerve City and the breakdown in Dear Diary; Deftones-inspired BMTH isn’t something that was on our 2024 bucket list but we’re here for it!

The mix of genres could be seen as more of a ‘mixtape’ rather than an album especially to fans of Sempiternal but for fans of Suicide Season, this album is a masterpiece. Lyrically, this is a great era for BMTH, with strong references to religion which has always run deep through the music but is now more prevalent than ever.

As for stand-out tracks, as this isn’t quite a no-skip album, p.u.s.s.e.- has almost a dubstep feel to it, providing exciting instrumentals layered under – what sounds like Eve – talking about a simulator; nothing out of the ordinary for recent Bring me the Horizon, but definitely has video-game villain vibes to it.

Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd blood, LosT, sTraNgeRs, DiE4U, and Kool-Aid definitely bring the hyper-pop punk, whilst YOUtopia, a bullet w-my name On, and AMeN!, bring about darker, heavier tones, combined with the vulnerability surrounding addiction and mental health brought forward in n/A, (spi)ritual, and DIg It; there’s something for everyone on this album, which is an upside to genre-bending. The downside to it is that it could come across as chaotic and unpolished, but when have BMTH ever cared about sounding chaotic and polished?

With guests such as Underoath, beautifully blending mellifluous metalcore tones with Oli Sykes’ post-hardcore screams, Lil Uzi Vert and Daryl Palumbo (Glassjaw) amplifying the incredible ascension into AmEn!, and AURORA serving incredible vocals on liMOusIne, it’s not hard to hear just how good this album is.

There are rumours of a second album drop (due to the + on the pre-release teaser: “BMTH invites you to Ascend!+ POST HUMAN: NeX Gen”) which wouldn’t be the first time this has happened this year, but this is purely speculation, although weighted by the additional instrumental tracks on  the M8 website.

Bring Me The Horizon invited us to Ascend!+ and we ascended; from Count Your Blessings to POST HUMAN: NeX Gen. Now we eagerly await the neX GeN; question is, will it be POSTHUMAN 3 or are we looking at an entirely new era? Knowing Bring Me The Horizon, anything is possible.

Cover Photo: Nick Davarias

Words: Ellie Archer