BMTH: The Curious Incident Of The Brolly In The Summertime

Social media can be a right old buzzkill. For most bands, secrets splooge onto the internet with nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction, resulting in the mystique of musicians evaporating. However, Bring Me The Horizon have been teasing us with some cryptic photos of an umbrella and frankly, it’s irked us. What does this mean? Was it Colonel Mustard in the library with the lead pipe? Ingest some Scooby Snacks, strap yourself into the Mystery Machine and let’s investigate together.

Vocalist Oli Sykes has a new tattoo of an umbrella under his armpit. It reads: “So come rain on my parade.” Maybe it’s there to catch the sweat that drips down when he’s playing gigs. Maybe it’s a new lyric. Maybe he’s a massive fan of Barbra Streisand or ‘60s musicals.

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The umbrella is also on Jordan Fish’s neck. It won’t save him if he falls in that pool, though. He might drown. Unless he’s actually a fish. Which he isn’t. He’s a keyboard player.

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Guitarist Lee Malia has been inked with the umbrella too. This is something big. Unless they’re all trolling us and it’s just one of those rub-on tattoos you used to get in bags of Cheetos. In which case: touché.

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Tattoo extraordinaire and Oli Sykes’ partner Hannah Snowdon is at it now, posting several photos of the umbrella.

Here’s one of it looking majestic on a phone box. Come to think of it, maybe it’s not anything to do with Bring Me The Horizon. Perhaps they’ve given up the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle and have become weathermen, letting us know that, following all the Super Good Days we’ve been having with the sun recently, we’re due a Black Day some time soon. However, their Reading and Leeds shows would be rubbish if this was true.

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We dig deeper and discover that legendary rock photographer Ross Halfin recently held a session with the band. Could this be an inkling of promo shots for a new album? Or could he just be shooting green screen footage for prospective weather channels?

Here’s another poster, this time spotted by a fan. It’s in Manchester. It looks like a Black Day.

Another fan has discovered several umbrellas, taking the guise of both poster and sticker this time. Come to think of it, she’s seen quite a lot of these. Is this mere coincidence? She could be behind it all.

With all this in mind, we’re thinking and praying that this is Bring Me The Horizon gearing up for album number five. The tattoo photos (especially the caption on Oli’s), the Ross Halfin affiliation and, upon questioning, the stony silence from band members all seem to point in this direction; the evidence is too weighty for something like a new live show and too band-inclusive for another Drop Dead range. As much as we’d love to see them do the weather forecast on Look North, we’re banking on a new album. It could even be a concept record about a man drowning, given the link between the umbrellas, the swimming pool and precursive single Drown. But we might just be talking a load of old bollocks…

Bring Me The Horizon, Live in London

Alec is a longtime contributor with first-class BA Honours in English with Creative Writing, and has worked for Metal Hammer since 2014. Over the years, he's written for Noisey, Stereoboard, uDiscoverMusic, and the good ship Hammer, interviewing major bands like Slipknot, Rammstein, and Tenacious D (plus some black metal bands your cool uncle might know). He's read Ulysses thrice, and it got worse each time.