DON BROCO ‘NIGHTMARE TRIPPING’
The year was 2011. It was close to New Year’s Eve, and my parents had given me a $25 iTunes gift card for Christmas. I had gone down the rabbit hole by clicking through the “You Might Also Like” below Dead Swans’ Southern Blue EP, having also added I think The Ghost of a Thousand’s first album and perhaps something else, looking to spend the full $25, when I stumbled upon the Big Fat Smile EP by the band Don Broco. They quickly became one of my favorite bands and have remained so for years, unafraid to continually evolve from release to release. If you had told me back then that they’d grow into a hugely popular act (nearly 900,000 monthly listeners on Spotify), I would’ve certainly believed you, though, if you’d told me that they’d a) feature Nickelback on a track in 2026, and b) I would love it, I’d have laughed right in your face, but here we are with the Bedford, UK quartet’s fifth LP.
“Cellophane” leads off Nightmare Tripping, setting the tone for what is the heaviest Broco record yet with some serious nu-metalling, followed by “Disappear,” a flamenco-tinged nu metalcore track that features a relatively simple but exceptionally catchy chorus. “Somersaults” is next, a kind of dreamy post-nu metal cut hybridized with pop rock, its superficial strangeness undergirded by hooks aplomb. The title track (batting clean-up to continue with the baseball metaphors) is exactly what you’d hope for a song entitled “Nightmare Tripping.” It is insane, careening from manic metalcore—“John Mayer still playing on my iPhone” as part of the nightmare trip sequence has to be one of the best/funniest lyrics in a song this side of Every Time I Die’s “I can’t go back to what I was / Metallica without the drugs” from “The Coin Has a Say”—to the exceptional Nickelback-driven chorus. The following holds true for the entire record, but it’s exemplified by “Nightmare Tripping”: it feels very much informed by the hyperreal production (you can read my interview with Drs. Jan Herbst and Mark Mynett of the Heaviness in Metal Music Production project here for more information on the “naturalistic” versus “hyperrealistic” spectrum in metal production) of a release like Bring Me the Horizon’s Post Human: Survival Horror; to wit, the breakdown in the song felt like it was straight from that release, which makes perfect sense considering: a) BMTH is the blueprint for bands in this space to experiment (wildly) with their sound and actually continue to grow in popularity; b) they weren’t the first metalcore band to introduce nu metal into their sound, but they were the primary popularizers of Linkin Park-core; and c) Dan Lancaster—who’s done a lot of work with Don Broco over the years, including producing this record—also mixed “Parasite Eve” and mixed and provided additional production for “Ludens,” both off Post Human: Survival Horror.
“Ghost in the Night” comes next, treading very similar ground as “One True Prince” on Amazing Things—it’s even in the same fifth track spot—with its shoegaze-y Hum and Deftones sound, but despite the band going back to that well, it doesn’t feel stale, and is actually one of the best songs on the record, just like its predecessor. “True Believers,” featuring Architects’ Sam Carter, is another standout track that combines an unhinged Heaven’s Gate-type vibe with both hooks and aggression, reminiscent of a song like “I’m Ready to Die for My Friends” by Paledusk. “Euphoria”—which my four-year-old calls “the dinosaur roar song”—is peak montage-core, infusing the signature Don Broco sound with a heavy dose of 80s influence; there are even two sections in the song where there’s that distinctive 80s snare that could’ve come straight from a band like the Fine Young Cannibals.
What follows is the nadir of the record. “Pacify Me” has the seed of an excellent song in there with the first part of the chorus, but the rest of the song didn’t do much for me. Likewise with “Swimming Pools,” which I think could’ve been cut as it doesn’t really go anywhere. “Hype Man” is a solid track but it feels a little anachronistic, as though it should’ve been released among the pre-Amazing Things non-album singles. Finally, though, we get “The Corner,” not just one of the best songs on the album but one of the best songs Don Broco’s done. It’s as though the band decided to take the directional cues from Amazing Things album closer “Easter Sunday” but reimagine it in the style of The Cure. It’s an emotive, brilliant ending to what, on the whole, is a very strong record and is yet more evidence that Don Broco remains one of the best and most interesting bands in the scene.