It Never Ends

"It Never Ends"
Single by Bring Me the Horizon
from the album There Is a Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven, Let's Keep It a Secret.
Released	20 August 2010
Format	Digital download, music video
Genre	Symphonic metal post-hardcore melodic metalcore
Length	4:34
Label	Visible Noise
Writer(s)	Oliver Sykes Lee Malia Matt Kean Matt Nicholls Jona Weinhofen
Producer(s)	Fredrik Nordström
Bring Me the Horizon singles chronology
"The Sadness Will Never End" (2009) "It Never Ends" (2010) "Visions" (2011)
Music video 'It Never Ends' on YouTube

"It Never Ends" is a digitally released single by British rock band Bring Me the Horizon, featured on their 2010 third studio album There Is a Hell, Believe Me I've Seen It. There Is a Heaven, Let's Keep It a Secret. It was released as the album's first single on 20 August 2010 in the United Kingdom^[1] and 24 August 2010 in the United States.^[2] The song was eligible to chart in the UK on 4 September a month prior to the album's release, entering the UK Singles Chart at № 103, and was met with generally positive reception from critics. A music video for the song premiered through the Visible Noise YouTube channel on 21 August 2010.^[3] The video was directed by Jakob Printzlau, who also created the artwork for the single and album.^[4]

Style

It Never Ends is seen as "blend[ing] delicacy with brutality".^[5] Described as aptly following its album title with a contrast between heaven and hell^[5] the song show a huge sonic development from the band's debut album Count Your Blessings.^[6] The song is noted for its symphonic influences with the use of keyboards and string instruments combined with a female choir^[7] and blends these with breakdowns and guitar riffs found in their typical style.^[6] The song utilises a "virtually spoken word verse", and closes with a gang shouted repeat of the song's title.^[8] The lyrics of the song are seen as revealing Sykes past struggles^[7] and are also seen as "emotional regret with patches of sorrow".^[9]

Music video

The music video was directed by Danish director Jakob Printzlau,^[10] also known by his alias "Plastic Kid".^[11] It starts with a cartoon looking ambulance appearing behind the words 'It Never Ends'. It is driven by a man with bandages all over his face, and in the back it shows Oli Sykes waking up slowly with a neck brace on. It then switches to a scene where Oli Sykes hovering and flying forward in front of a desert background miming the lyrics slightly.

The nurse that is in the ambulance with Oli uses a drill type machine to remove one of his organs, and throws it out the back of the ambulance, where a group of villains are pursuing. After a while, the ambulance arrives at a hospital. At this point, the other members of Bring Me The Horizon appear as medics and take Oli to an operation room. The villains enter the hospital and manage to break into the room at Oli's request that his life ends. The final shot focuses on Oli's bloodied eyes as the villains overpower him and the medics.

The villains are represented to be Oli's inner demons, and the scene at the end represents Oli losing to his inner demons.

Release and reception

With the original promotion of the third studio album Bring Me the Horizon released a 30-second teaser trailer for the album using the last 30 seconds of "It Never Ends".^[12] The single was officially available on 20 August 2010 and then the music video was released on 21 August 2010 6pm GMT.^[13][14]

On 4 September 2010, "It Never Ends" debuted at № 3 on the UK Rock Chart,^[15] № 11 on UK Independent Singles chart^[16] and № 103 on the UK Singles Chart.^[17] The single stayed on the UK Rock Chart for three weeks. During the week of 11 September 2010, it fell to № 18.^[18] The next week, the single dropped to № 33.^[19] The song fell off of the chart the following week.^[20]

Upon its release the song was well received. In a pre-release review of the album AbsolutePunk called the song "Bring Me the Horizon's best song yet".^[5] In a similar pre-release analysis of the album Metal Hammer praised Sykes performance as "giving way to one of the best choruses of his career to date".^[8]

References