The Dillinger Escape Plan

Spouting gibberish and screaming like a B-movie bimbo about to meet her demise, art-damaged luminary Mike Patton is a one-man crazy train. Patton's bands Fantômas, Mr. Bungle, and Tomahawk are no slouches, but no players keep him from going off the rails like New Jersey avant headbangers the Dillinger Escape Plan, with whom Patton collaborated on this summer's Irony Is a Dead Scene EP. The title of the Dillinger's 1999 Calculating Infinity suggests mathcore, but the band's schizoid, overmodulated mix of brutal thrash, pulsing feedback, buried bleeps, and out-of-nowhere time changes make metal eccentrics -- and recent tourmates -- System of Down seem conventional and linear in comparison.

No, Patton won't be a part of Dillinger's latest trek, but without him, the band still spits fire -- literally. As the group plows through some of the day's most technical and extreme material, new frontman Greg Puciato storms the stage with kerosene and a torch. And you thought Irony's 18-minute assault was dangerous.