Alternative rock act Chevelle, released their debut album, Point #1 in 1999 and met with some success, but not anything that would guarantee the band a future in the music business. Three years later with the release of their second album Wonder What’s Next, that all changed. Riding on a string of popular radio hits, such as
The Red and the title track
Wonder What’s Next, this album eventually went platinum. My opinion of the album is varied, but I rather enjoy this album, despite some repetitiveness.
**Musically, this album is the catchiest album from the Loeffler three. The guitar, bass, and drums mesh well together to create some catchy, yet at the same time, heavy music. Sam Loeffler compliments both the bass and guitar well with some interesting, while at the same time, simple beats. I especially like the job that he does on
Send the Pain Below, nothing fancy, but gets the job done and done well at that. Bassist Joe Loeffler has some nice lines here and there, but just doesn’t make enough of a difference for me to be able to call him a great bassist. This album is most likely his weakest that he did for Chevelle, although I do really enjoy the bass lines he plays in
An Evening With El Diablo, especially the opening part where the bass is heard by itself for a while. The guitar from singer Pete is rather entertaining despite simplicity, no one ever said simplicity is a bad thing. The guitar is really all just riffs and sometimes that’s all a song will dispense, something that I didn’t find to be to good for this album.* Sometimes there will be use of acoustic guitar parts, such as on
Closure, which provides some variety, slightly. My overall favorite song on the album musically is without a doubt the title track, as well as the heaviest song on the album,
Wonder What’s Next. Despite criticisms, I find this album to be musically entertaining for it’s catchiness.**
Sam’s singing is done very well for this record and for me, actually keeps things from getting repetitive fast. Most will compare his voice to that of Manyard James Keenan, but I have never really liked his voice and I like Sam’s. Notwithstanding however, I still do recognize the comparisons made between the two vocalists. Sometimes Sam will go from just regular clean singing to trying to have a rougher sounding voice. Sometimes that will work, but mostly it doesn’t. The song
Wonder What’s Next is one of the only times where Sam’s singing that way will work. Other favorites of Sam’s singing are
Don’t Fake This which is my favorite song on the album and then
An Evening With El Diablo that has an excellent chorus going for it.**
I do have some complaints to mention about this album. The first is that even though the music is nice and catchy, it doesn’t show real talent to me. I think that the guitar could have some more interesting leads and possibly a solo would have worked in some songs even. Also, sometimes some songs will start to sound the same to me, meaning that the album will eventually get repetitive. Other than those two things, I find that this album is actually really good and an improvement over Point #1. My favorite songs off of this album are most likely
Wonder What’s Next,
An Evening With El Diablo, and last, as well as greatest,
Don’t Fake This. Overall this is in between a good and a great album leading to a rating of 3-3.5 out of 5. Thank you for reading this review and I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks.
