Well well, self titled, and no less the all so important third album, did Chimaira pull it through?, or did they fall into the pits off hell, don’t miss this cliffhanger of review!!!, Hehe, well Chimaira, are a clear case of a band that tried to gain on the nu-metal bandwagon, and saw that being nu metal doesn’t mean good sales, so something had to change, they decided to ditch the electro sampled nu-metal to a more heavy old school thrash metal sound, with some illusive melodic parts and a couple of other tidbits, did it worked? Hell Yeah, if it rocks it sells, so what about now, with their self titled?
The opening track “Nothing Remains” shows their now heavy drumming and …. ohhh the guitar work is quite good, seems the duo guitarists have learned something new in this couple of year, then comes “Save Ourselves” another great track with a great solo, by the end of the track i can tell this much, the new drummer is good…”fear factory like drumming“, but the guitar work, is by far the highlight here, “Inside The Horror” plays like a b movie horror soundtrack, very nice.
Jumping through to “Salvation”, slow paced with a long melodic pace, there is a part there that sound just like…. uhhh strange, well we then get the thrash like “Comatose”, a Fear Factory meets melodic whatever in “Left for Dead”, then we get the heavy drumming heavy hitting chorus of “Everything You Love”, another track that resembles Fear Factory (old school) on “Bloodlust”, we get more “by the numbers” thrash with “Pray For All” and now we are at a end with the somewhat epic “Lazarus” very enjoyable and catchy…it sums up well what this album was about, heavy, hard and catchy.
Although very enjoyable, there seems to me, that ever since “The Impossibility Of Reason” Chimaira just try to “rip off” in a good way old school stuff and they try to mesh it with their semi characteristic sound, is it good? For sure, Is it fresh and original?, Not so much, i think with this release they drooped some of the aggression for some added melodic parts and some consistence, but for me that’s not really a good thing, since now, there doesn’t seem to be any real killer tracks, just good clean fun, ohh well you can’t have the cake and eat it too.
Chimaira – Nothing Remains
Chimaira – Save Ourselves
2 comments
Chimaira did one mistake. They started on the wrong foot. And now, every record they have to say “no… now we are playing true metal and the early days suck”. Dudes, stop making excuses! You sound great. Your albuns rock – till’ now – so who cares if the “true evil kult bullshit fucked metal heads” don’t say your metal? I don’t care. I like.
Yeah, they are a bit pretencions, they saw that when they do play metal that people like it, and now they have the “We are the second coming of jesus” syndrome.