Review Summary: "It's possible that the worst / of the inside / could take our pencils away" - Pete Loeffler
The band certainly seems to have lost their pencils halfway through writing this album, because the album pretty much flies off the rails at the half-way point.
Chevelle have always been a band known for solid consistency, if not necessarily for innovation. They are, after all, one of the strongest mainstream rock bands in the business, never seeming to stumble or falter like their contemporaries have. However, in my eyes, this album is like the fish out of water in Chevelle's discography; the album that simply isn't as good as the rest.
Sure, I've heard lots of people sing praise for this album. They'll say to me, "Seriously? Have you not heard
The Clincher?" or "How can you hate this album when it has
Still Running and
Get Some?" But never have I heard anyone say "Listen to
Tug-o-War or
To Return and you'll change your mind." Why is that? Because this album's second half is simply not good, and subconsciously, everyone knows it.
Part of this is because Chevelle has tried to make a harder album, a more 'metal' album. And for the first half, at least, they seem to succeed admirably. From the dissonant guitars of
Vitamin R's chorus and the screeching harmonics of
The Clincher to the screamed chorus of
Still Running, Chevelle provide us with 5 solid headbangers that, while still being undeniably catchy, help firmly establish their alt-metal credibility. The improved instrumentation has definitely helped things, trading the overly simple riffs of
Grab Thy Hand and
Forfeit from their previous albums for the sinister riffs of
Still Running and
Breach Birth. We seem to be on track to an album that could best even "Wonder What's Next".
Sadly, it's at this point where things go wrong. Chevelle seem to run out of ideas and slip into a depressed mid-tempo daze, forfeiting the creativity that made "Wonder What's Next" so intriguing in exchange for near-toneless drop A# riffs that scores of other nu-metal bands could have created. In fact, I can't even remember off the top of my head what these tracks sound like. They're worse than bad, because bad might still stick in your head. They're
boring.
To Return sounds like the child of
Closure and
Send the Pain Below on Ritalin, depressed and flat-out dull, while
Another Know-it-All,
Emotional Drought, and
Tug-o-War blend into an indiscernible mess of uninspired riffs from the heydays of nu-metal, with the three songs seemingly in a competition to see how much they can rip themselves off.
Emotional Drought's main riff is taken straight out of
Breach Birth while
Another Know-it-All's main riff is simply
The Clincher's chorus sped up. Not even Pete Loeffler's voice can save the mundane sluggishness the uninspired instrumentation provides these tracks with.
Really, this album does not deserve half the acclaim it receives. Perhaps it's because the best tracks are the most well known tracks off the album, but 5 out of 11 good tracks does not a 3.8 album make. This type of thinking is going to do us in.
