It seems that with each album of Chevelle’s, they switch sounds. For their sophomore effort,
Wonder What’s Next, they took to writing catchier songs with a brooding sensation. Then with
This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In) the band took a big leap in terms of instrumental talent, but did in fact lose a bit of their catchiness, a good thing if you ask me because I liked the darker edge to it. However, if you take the broodiness of Wonder What’s Next and combine it with the instrumental talent of This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In), then you will get the Loeffler trio’s debut album,
Point #1.
To be honest Point #1 is nothing like the bands other two records. This is without a doubt an alternative metal album, while the other two would fit in either the alternative rock or nu-metal genre. I highly doubt that those who like Wonder What’s Next would like this, but perhaps people who are bigger fans of This Type of Thinking would be more appreciative of Point #1. The overall feeling of the album is a lot rawer when compared to their other albums. The guitar has a chunkier feeling through the whole album. Like the other two albums, it plays plenty of leads, but here they are more riff base oriented leads. Pete’s singing takes more of a back seat on here than you’d expect and in no way could even be compared to that of Manyard James Keenan (Tool, A Perfect Circle), because his voice is the main reason for the album having such a raw sound. Most of the time it will feel like he is delivering the vocals on his last breath. The bass isn’t all I’d expect of it for the genre within this album, but is still generally good and delivers some nice lines here and there that are audible. The production is done well with a very tight instrumental feeling during the entire record, especially the drums from Sam that has really, really tight beats on pretty much every song.
There are a number of standout songs on this album. Those are
Point #1,
Mia,
Anticipation, and the epic feeling
Long. The moving guitar riff and bass lines (stands out quite a bit actually) of
Anticipation make it one of the best musical songs on the album. The vocal job that Pete does on
Point #1 is simply amazing. He starts out singing by himself with a little quiet guitar part in the background. Then when all the instruments come in it goes directly into an amazing chorus that just leaves me thinking wow every time I hear it.
Mia is another song that goes directly into the chorus when all the instruments join in and the drumming is absolutely stellar on here. Even though
Long is a favorite of mine, it doesn’t have much going for it. Perhaps it is just because I like the alternating quiet then heavy parts and the heavy intro that soon has Pete yelling
“Correspond, this day will be long”. The last two minutes gets even heavier than any other part of it, making for quite an epic feeling song that feels like a giant compared to most of the songs.
It’s hard to discern as to which of Chevelle’s albums is their best mainly because all three of their present album have a big sound difference to them. I can’t really choose, but I would have to say that this ties
This Type of Thinking (Could Do Us In) and easily edges out
Wonder What’s Next. The only problem, as with all Chevelle albums, is that eventually a feeling of repetitiveness takes over. However, this still makes for an excellent record.
Happy 40th review to me. :chug:
