Skillet - Unleashed

Christian rock's leading figures Skillet have just unleashed (pun intended) their next album. The band, known for their rigorous touring, is back with Unleashed, but it's not the big record you'd want from them.

For what it's worth, the record starts huge. 'Feel Invincible' starts epically with giant guitar paired with stinging synths, bringing the album in on a confident note. The chorus is absolutely massive, a big electronic banger with sweet duets by husband/wife duo John and Korey Cooper. 'Back From The Dead' follows through, the same big energy with a more pump-up vibe to it. The song is big and upfront, continuing the album on a strong note.

This is where the album starts falling apart. 'I Want To Live' is the last great track on the record, epic strings bringing the song in while duets serve as a highlight for the rest of the track, ending on a lovely note. The rest of the record just feels... uncertain. 'Stars' is what starts this trend, the song being clearly anthemic but wholly unfulfilling. This is a problem for nearly every other track on the album, especially the admittedly sweet 'Watching For Comets', as well as the constant internal struggle of trying to find a solid footing. 'Famous' has an odd dancey vibe amidst an album that was previously big and confronting, and 'Lions' follows this by sounding completely out of place, as if somewhere between these songs the album become a bad cross between 90s electronica and cheesy anthemic singing. 'Out Of Hell' has peppy vocals that absolutely don't fit the demanding instrumental.

Some songs seem to have lacked inspiration during their writing process, too. You can only listen to 'Undefeated' for so long before you say, "I get it." The chorus seems to be 75% of the song; you get sick of hearing "I know I can beat it... Fight for the love of the game, unstoppable / That's right, I'm unstoppable" by the time the song is reaching its end. 'Burn It Down' is one of the most boring tracks on the album; there's nothing remotely interesting about it. It's just an all around bad electronic rock song, which is unfortunate considering how well they were doing with the electronic influence early on with the record. 'Saviors Of The World' is almost preachy and completely cliché. 'The Resistance' is as off putting as the rest of the album, and the ending feels completely out of place. Even the band knew they needed something big to end the album, so they just stuck a random jam at the end of this track.

Skillet had an identity crisis with Unleashed. The album started off so promising, which is what makes this record so disappointing. Everything fell apart as the album got to its center, and nothing improved. There's no sense of identity in this album; it's disjointed and uninspired. There's still some hope, as evidenced by the first few tracks. Let's hope the next album isn't a flop, too.

Favorite Tracks: Feel Invincible, I Want To Live, Back From The Dead

Least Favorite Tracks: Lions, Famous, Burn It Down

Rating: 59 / 100

Russian Circles - Guidance

Post-Metal is an extensive genre. There's something intrinsically beautiful and provocative about it. It's expansive and huge, and takes its listeners somewhere new, like reading a highly engaging sci-fi book about new worlds. Russian Circles is a prime example of this. Their new record Guidance is the most realized their sound has ever been within their decade-long career. It's a masterful crafting of performances that builds such an awe-inspiring visual for its listener, it's hard to not be blown away.

This album is everything post-metal should be. It's entirely instrumental too, leaving the instruments to do the talking and give meaning to the music. The soul of each track is very evident, almost tangible. Opening track 'Asa' provides for an introspective introduction to the record, a very soothing beginning that lets you reflect - it's already great that the album can have this effect so early on. It transitions into 'Vorel', which comes rumbling in with fantastic drumming from Dave Turncrantz segueing into evil-sounding guitars. The song develops with a thick and crunchy bassline from Brian Cook, which paired with the pounding toms and distorted guitars sounds epic. Crunchy basslines are a major part of 'Afrika' as well, the complimenting drum rolls that pair with it before the massive guitars kick in during the bridge (which has a weird cutout moment that interrupts the pace a bit) making the track immense. The song progresses from being a dark monster to an uplifting and hopeful call-to-arms by the end, concluding with a sweet little guitar melody. 'Overboard' follows up with the same sweet spacious guitar that concluded 'Afrika' before 'Cella' returns to the big heavy riffs and hits that feel like punches to the face. 

There's almost a narrative going on within this album. Perhaps Guidance goes deeper than an entrancing listen. The album cover looks to be a shot of an unstable African society amidst a crisis... Which gives credit to the track title of 'Afrika'. The concluding track on the album is the sweet, giant buildup 'Lisboa', another location that has history of political unrest. Listening to the music, there is a sense of disorder within it. The narrative of war can be found through the album; 'Asa' is the calm before the storm, almost a reflection of a soldier or a time before a society was thrown into war. 'Vorel' follows through with the violence building up, growing in waves (as is with the rolling drums) before war becomes inevitable. 'Mota' has a hopeful sound with great guitar work, the hope of bystanders of the violence. The song becomes tense at the end, to portray that it is becoming evident that the conflict will not end easily. 'Afrika' perhaps plays to the violence of African conflicts, such as the Rwandan genocide. It's thick and unrelenting guitar plays a key role in setting the scene. It's soft reprise acts as an outlook for the future - a hopeful one.

The narrative isn't obvious, and perhaps unintended, but it does give Guidance some more dimension. Russian Circles created a truly immersive post-metal album. Guidance flows and ebbs with intensity and flows seamlessly from track to track, providing for a story to unfold as each note is hit. It's a masterful performance and a truly powerful album. Post-Metal at it's finest.

Favorite Tracks: Vorel, Lisboa, Afrika

Least Favorite Track: Overboard

Rating: 86 / 100

Noisia - Outer Edges

Dubstep often times goes two ways. It's big and upfront, or its subdued and moody. Noisia went for the upfront route with their new album Outer Edges, but to mixed results. This album has its moments of drum and bass jamming but often times sounds like a mish-mash of sounds clustered together very incoherently.

The pacing of this album is pretty odd to begin with. Opener 'The Approach' is a chill (albeit, somewhat boring) introduction to an album before 'Anomaly' kicks in with a speedy beat. 'Collider' starts with a more ominous sound and introduces a darker sound that carries through stays unique to the one track. "Weird" describes the next few tracks - 'Vigilantes' brings in the rave-dubstep vibes, but features some off-putting vocal samples that don't play well to the overall vibe of the track. The next track 'Tentacles' is weird in a different way - it's really unsettling. The "tentacles, tentacles, tentacles..." vocal build up makes you squirm before the underwhelming drop kicks in.

While the first half of the album will make you feel a variety of ways, the second half has many tracks that are just plain boring, and, at times, stupid. Songs like 'Surfaceless' and 'Exavolt' sound like a cluster of random noises that build up to nothing and have nothing climactic to carry them somewhere. Other tracks including 'Motion Blur' just don't go anywhere and fail to create an interesting experience. The album concludes on an absolutely dead note, the song 'Sinkhole' being one of the worst things I've heard in awhile and 'Get Deaded' just being plain stupid.

To its credit, this album has some solid drops in it. 'Voodoo' starts off sludgy but kicks into something actually worth getting into later on. 'Mantra' has some massive vibes going on with it, the first track on the album that is truly enjoyable and has a big dance demeanor - 'Into Dust' reprises this later on with a fantastic drop accompanying it. 'The Entangled' almost reproduces this but doesn't climax quite as well as it could have. Much of the song is a great build up to something that never comes. 'Stonewalled' is another track with a fat drop but the rest of the track feels like they just threw a bunch of sounds together into one progressive mess.

Dubstep isn't good if it's messy. Throwing in noises and sounds where they shouldn't be can kill the whole vibe of the song. Noisia struggled with that in this record. A lot of things feel unnecessary and often times don't climax as they could for something big. Perhaps its part of their drum and bass nature, but this album felt empty and anticlimactic for the most part. Maybe their next release will be more of a jam.

Favorite Tracks: Mantra, The Entangled

Least Favorite Tracks: Sinkhole, Get Deaded, Straight Hook, Tentacles

Rating: 59 / 100

DJ Khaled - Major Key

Have you ever wanted to listen to a meme? DJ Khaled has you covered. His new album, coincidentally titled Major Key is exactly that: one giant meme. So unless you're going into this album wanting that, you won't be happy.

You can tell an album is destined for failure when Future is featured on three tracks. That's three tracks too many. Opinions aside, Future isn't the worst part about this record. He's pretty good on it, honestly - he's finally improving. His bars actually have some emotion in them. The intro is a banger - 'I Got The Keys' features him, and while his chorus is nothing more than saying the title of the song over and over again, his voice sounds more (unnecessarily?) urgent than usual, which is nice and refreshing. Jay-Z features on the track as well - as the instrumental suggests - and brings the song a step further.

Other features are hit or miss. Drake doesn't shine here; his usual subtlety is gone and instead, he delivers a very, very blatant verse about sex in 'For Free' that kills the entire track (though all of the Khaled interjections of "ANOTHER ONE" didn't leave for much to be appreciated). Nicki Minaj is as annoying as typical, but when she come in on 'Do You Mind', it gives the album a fresh voice. The song itself, however, outstays its welcome by being far too long than it needs to be. Meghan Trainor is the other prominent female voice on the album in 'Forgive Me Father', though this doesn't mean much since you can barely understand what she is saying half of the time as she slurs her way through the verse. This song ends DJ Khaled's portion of his own album (you read that right), since a track by Mavado (which is in Spanish?) concludes it. 'Nas Album Done' featuring - you guessed it - Nas continues a repetitive album with another repetitive instrumental (while the verses themselves aren't as dull).

While a lot of the features aren't top notch, there are some good ones. The aforementioned features on the first track with Jay-Z and Future are pretty good. Future shows up on two other tracks - 'Fuck Up The Club', where he's just plain annoying, and 'Ima Be Alright', which is sweet and melodic. 'Holy Key' is a big track, Big Sean going big on his verse, and Kendrick Lamar of course being nothing short of legendary. J. Cole also has a good verse on 'Jermaine's Interlude', but the song itself is fairly boring.

Instrumentally, there's nothing special to find either in many tracks. Some standouts include 'I Got The Keys', 'Holy Key', and 'Don't Ever Play Yourself' - the latter of which isn't as meme-worthy as you'd expect. It can't be praised lyrically (then again, neither can a lot of this record; "She so weird I made her pussy fart" in 'Pick These Hoes Apart' is by far the worst thing I've heard this entire year), but it has some good sounds in it, including the piano.

The self-proclaimed Snapchat king has taken his memes and put it to music. Major Key isn't much to tackle. It almost feels like one big joke. There's little interesting development within in and too few great moments for its execution. Perhaps DJ Khaled needs to have a reality check before his next release.

Favorite Tracks: Holy Key, I Got The Keys, Ima Be Alright

Least Favorite Tracks: Pick These Hoes Apart, Tourist, Fuck Up The Club

Rating: 58 / 100

Harakiri For The Sky - III: Trauma

Most people will see black metal as something satanic or not of this world. This is only partially true of Harakiri From The Sky. They don't dabble with the sounds of Hell; rather, they choose to explore the mind and its emotions instead. III: Trauma is their newest release, and it goes further and bites harder than any of its predecessors.

Going into Trauma, you expect something dark and for something nasty to develop within your throat as it progresses. That's what black metal would typically do to you. But no, Harakiri For The Sky takes a different direction. There's something pure in their music; it's not the heaviness that speaks for it. Rather, the melodies seem to do that for them. III: Trauma is not an album meant to be jammed to (though, that is very much a thing you can do). It's an album that wants your understanding and focus - and trust me, you'll need it.

All expectations are lost straight from the start, replacing them with a morbid curiosity instead. The eleven-minute epic 'Calling The Rain' begins the sweltering album, piano chords and reverberating guitar being this albums entrance. Instead of dropping those elements in favor of a low-tuned chugging, powerchords kick in in order to expand upon the ideas developing from the start. The lead guitar soars above the thriving instrumental as if to search for something before tortured vocals enter the scene, the angered and lost disposition of the voice contrasting the hopeful instrumental. This song itself is a journey; by its end it feels like you've been hit by enough thought to have listened to an entire album already. It goes through cycles, heavy ones full of rage and others begging for hope. The vocals and instrumental are constantly fighting each other in some sort of dark, graceful dance that begs for an answer. It's gentle conclusion finds itself experiencing an aftermath, one final blast taking the song to its end.

After that's over, it's time for the second song. Every track on this record is a lengthy one, the shortest clocking in at eight and a half minutes ('The Traces We Leave'). Often times, bands who take these long roads lose themselves in complex turns and systems that ultimately makes the song lose its light. Everything on this record feels justified in its length, though. Each song is its own story, its own exploration of a concept that delves within your own psyche to bring out a very warming closeness. There are big riffs to give the listener moments to jam - see 'This Life As A Dagger' especially - but this album is much more than that.

This album feels almost like an alternative rock record in terms of its understanding of heaviness and structure. Take 'Funeral Dreams' as an example, though each song exhibits it. It isn't driven by a need for galloping riffs to make itself sound big; each song is cavernous with a clear respect to spaciousness. Every element of the song comes together to create massive atmosphere that builds and builds into one collective body. The riffs don't even feel as down-your-throat due to low tuning. The mixing compliments the high-end more so than the low-end (which also isn't tuned down to the depths of Hell). This album channels melody over thrill, and emotion over just rage. The instrumentals help inspire your mind as to what you should be feeling - 'Thanatos' begins with an ethereal intro that makes you feel like you're drowning, while the epic percussion and powerful feeling of 'Dry The River' gives you hope.

Harakiri From The Sky seems to understand what metal should be about. III: Trauma is not your every day black metal album. It is post-metal at its finest. It explores surreal and deep parts of the human emotions, and seeks to find closure within them through the music. It's a long record but a revealing one. It's an essential for any metal fan, and one that cannot be skipped for any fan of music. It's a brilliant emotional journey that has you think and feel - there's nothing more important that music can do for you.

Favorite Tracks: Calling The Rain, Funeral Dreams, Dry The River

Least Favorite Track: The Traces We Leave

Rating: 88 / 100

Periphery - Periphery III: Select Difficulty

Periphery has slowly been becoming the boy band of the djent scene. Rising like a phoenix, Periphery brought the virtual reality of djent and brought it success in the realm of metal, giving it a true messenger. Their fifth record Periphery III: Select Difficulty, however, doesn't pigeonhole them into the small space that djent is commonly labeled with (those clichéd open and first fret notes, as part of the meme). It's one of the band's most diverse records, following the same elements they experimented with in the past, as well as adding new ones in.

My favorite part of this record is that it feels like the natural progression for the band. Their last releases were a double-album, Juggernaut: Alpha and Juggernaut: Omega. The albums' songs needed the context of the story of the concept of the record to really balance them out - I didn't fully enjoy Omega because of this. The songs didn't really work too great outside the context of the album. Alpha was a much more enjoyable listen, however, because while it did also have the context of a conceptualization backing it, the album made great use of melody. The melodies on that album soared and really made the songs feel a lot more powerful. Select Difficulty brought that a step further, which is exactly what I wanted.

Melody is huge on this record. Vocalist Spencer Soleto has some truly defining moments on this record. The note he hits at the end of 'Catch Fire' is one of the most epic moments on the album. The way he belts out certain notes adds a whole other level of energy to the track. His singing style also has a certain swagger to it - it almost feels like the same pop fusions style Issues is known for. The back-half is a lot more melody-centric, and just generally less heavy in the grand scheme of things. The songs all have a softer and more alternative rock/metal sound to them. This only stays true for about every other track after the halfway mark, though. The vocals don't start making a mark on the album until the second track 'Motormouth', but they're not the focus until about 'Flatline' - the first track that feels like melody has importance and is not a backing to the thrashing instrumentals. The latter of the two songs has a massive ending to go with it, too.

Misha Mansoor is essentially the being of Periphery. His guitar work is what brought them into the spotlight, after all. Every track feels like a guitar feat - there's not one that doesn't have guitar anything less than epic. Whether it's the trashing, low-tuned pounding notes of 'Motormouth' or the sweet licks in 'The Way The News Goes...', there's always something going on. The album is full of massive instrumental movements and moments. The epic screams in the bridge of 'Marigold' are backed by a masterful metal instrumental complete with an orchestral intro and complex guitar riffs. There are layers upon layers of guitar goodness in 'Prayer Position', all of which build to an absolutely mindbending ending.

The softer moments on the record cannot be ignored, too. Massive orchestras can be easily missed if you're not careful, and they add a lot of dimension to the music. Closing track 'Lune' is half orchestral, half jamming, with beautiful symphonic pieces found interspersed within the track making it a very climactic closure to the record. 'Marigold' ends on an ambient piece for two minutes that adds a sense of aftermath to the track. The piano outro following 'The Way The News Goes...' is also a great touch.

Sadly, an album given so much acclaim does have some negatives. There are songs on this record that feels unfinished. The chorus instrumentals of 'The Way The News Goes...' are a mess, though the rest of the song leaves little to complain about. 'Habitual Line-Stepper' is another song that has great parts but feels very incohesive. And paired with their boy band position in the metal world, their lyrics sometimes don't support them. There are a lot of very cringey lyrics on the record, but one that immediately stood out that had me check the lyrics to make sure I had heard correctly are in 'Marigold': "Suck on the mother's dead tit" is a true feat of a lyric. And let's not get started on the title of 'The Price Is Wrong'...

Select Difficulty was the natural progression for Periphery. Sometimes band go in a direction that didn't fit what they were ready for, or they moved on too quickly from something they were just beginning to get a grasp of. Periphery is taking their time, and is hitting all the right stops along the way. Select Difficulty isn't a perfect album, but it's definitely up there with some of the band's best works. Lots of big moments make this album the Alpha (my personal favorite record from the band) with more riffs. There's room to grow, but the storm that is Periphery isn't going to be slowing down any time soon.

Favorite Tracks: Marigold, Catch Fire, Lune, Flatline

Least Favorite Tracks: Motormouth, Habitual Line-Stepper

Rating: 78 / 100

Clams Casino - 32 Levels

Producer Clams Casino, known for tackling music with a bunch of big names such as FKA twigs and A$AP Rocky, has released his debut LP 32 Levels. The record features a wide array of artists from several genres, and combines elements of both hip-hop and electronica into one collection of songs.

There's two clear halves to this record. The first half is a very hip-hop centric collection of songs, while the second half takes a poppier route. Clams Casino produces beats and instrumentals for the tracks - and those are always spot on. The problem, however, lies with the features.

The first half of the record is very much hit-or-miss. Instrumentals are never the problem. There are some okay tracks like 'Be Somebody' featuring A$AP Rocky and Lil B, with a great instrumental but lyrics that just feel like one big name drop (with no real point of doing so) and 'All Nite' with Vince Staples which has a strong message but a horrible delivery. Then there's songs that have absolutely nothing interesting going for them - 'Witness' is just plain trash, while the next two tracks are just completely forgettable. The hip-hop half falls into the trap of becoming way too self-obsessed and sits itself on a high horse, perhaps the fault of the features. The lack of variation and climax makes it come and go, as if it never happened.

The poppier half has a more agreeable composure. Lots of strong voices bring a more refreshing palette to the album, a good contrast from the monotonous hip-hop side. Mikky Ekko sounds huge on 'Into The Fire', finally giving the album some feeling of exposition nearly three-fourths of the way into it. The same goes for 'Back To You' with Kelly Zutrau, the only song on the record that has some excitement to it with the build in its second chorus. Kelela features on 'A Breath Away', the song featuring Indian percussion that really adds a nice color to the record. Sadly, the second half has more going against it than it does for it (though, it has more to brag about that the earlier part of the album). Same Dew's track 'Thanks To You' starts promising but gets really repetitive with its slowly punching in-and-out synth instrumental, the slow and glitchy track not going anywhere for its three minute run, making the entire track blur together. 'Ghost In A Kiss' is some odd ASMR fusion with hip-hop, and it just doesn't go down well under any circumstance. The last track lacks any finality to the album, leaving it on a down note, as is the case with much of this record. There's no climax found anywhere in any track. Light choruses and slow verses rule this record, and there's nothing within them to show for.

Clams Casino produced some fantastic instrumentals, but failed to bring those anywhere of worth. This album fails to have a big defining moment and feels like background noise for much of it. A single track on this record has any sense of excitement in it. If you're looking for something to put on the background as to not pay attention to it, this is the one, because nothing will go on during it. Perhaps he should stick to getting his production credits.

Favorite Track: Back To You

Least Favorite Tracks: Blast, Witness, Ghost In A Kiss

Rating: 56 / 100

Bright Light Bright Light - Choreography

The 80s was an... interesting time. Lots of those who lived through it will remember it for its energetic music. Bright Light Bright Light channels that 80s flair in his new record, Choreography. His third LP shows him mastering his synthpop sound, embodying everything people loved from the 80s.

Choreography will get you dancing. It's a very big record in terms of vibes. Right at the start with 'All In The Name' we have big celebration vibes complete with a soulful choir. The album's grooviness doesn't falter at all throughout it's length. Some songs like the massive 'Kiss For Kiss' featuring Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters has a very lovey flow to it, the infectious track feeling modern all the while combining elements of its time period. The song builds over time, elements appearing and going throughout, keeping the song fresh. The chorus has a very distorted synth that almost feels like metal rhythm guitar that builds up so much great tension, making the song sound huge.

If anything, this album feels a little too 80s. It all gets repetitive - the first song itself struggles with feeling overdone. Tracks like 'I Only Want To Please You' with Ana Matronic (also of Scissor Sisters) feels like it came straight from an 80s track, no sense of innovation or anything besides production feels fresh about this track. The album becomes very standard to listen to in the second half - it becomes forgettable. That's where it's fault lies, it doesn't try to be anything interesting for most of its playtime and tries to appeal to a single type of listener. Elton John features on three tracks, but his contributions, shockingly, don't really add anything to the music.

Choreography will give an 80s child a taste of what they grew up listening to, but to an outsider it won't be much of an enjoyable listen. It's a big dancey record and a lot of the tracks do well as standalone songs, but as a consecutive listening experience, just doesn't amount to a thoroughly enjoyable listen. Bright Light Bright Light is on the verge of something, but he's not quite there yet.

Favorite Track: Kiss For Kiss

Least Favorite Track: I Only Want To Please You

Rating: 67 / 100

Emily Jane White - They Moved In Shadow All Together

Darkness always holds some sort of meaning, regardless of what light is shined upon it (or lack thereof, rather). Emily Jane White uses her distinct brand of dreamy, dark folk in her new album They Moved In Shadow All Together to take you on a revealing journey of your inner self. It's a truly cleansing experience to listen to this record.

This album isn't dark folk in the reign of Chelsea Wolfe; this album does not condemn humanity or sound like darkness is swallowing you. It feels more like your running into a pale horizon as the darkness slowly trails behind you, taking memories and dreams with you. It's beautifully put together, beautiful harmonies and slowly trudging instrumentals making the music resonate through your core. The albums also flow gently like a calm sea, 'Pallid Eyes' especially feels like it has a calm sway to it. 'Antechamber' has it's own type of presence, its soaring harmonies contrasting the dark instrumental that has a odd optimism in it. The instrumental moves like a ballet dancer, weaving gracefully in and out and stunning jumps and dives. This album, while slow moving and dark, has a lot of character embedded within it.

Have I mentioned this album is beautiful yet? There are so manny blissful instrumental moments on it that add so much taste to it! The piano performances on the album are fantastic: moments include 'Rupturing' which has a gorgeous ascending piano part that is accompanied by strings to build back in (it reprises itself as a sort of pre-chorus), 'The Black Dove' with a sweet piano intro that leads into a mysteriously and grandly swelling into a truly epic folk song led by confident percussion. The drums on this album are absolutely fantastic, too. Whether it be the slow guiding beat to 'Frozen Garden' or the epic crashes of 'Hands', the percussion on this album was executed incredibly, done with master precision. The instrumentals can also swallow you whole, in the case of the amazingly beautiful cavern that is 'Nightmares On Repeat'.

The lyrics and vocal melodies on this album may the best part of the record. The harmonies are spine tingling and the words chilling. There's not a single lyrical moment to be highlighted, as the entire album is written incredibly. Every word and every line feels so perfectly in place in the scheme of the story this album has that it's almost like you can reach out and hold them. The melodies add movement to this wonderful story, take the haunting melodies of 'Moulding' for example. Absolutely crushing and beautiful.

There's something starkly beautiful in the simplicity of They Moved In Shadow All Together. It hits so close to the heart and feels so real and personal... It sounds like the lovechild of Aurora's music and Chelsea Wolfe's (two artists I can't get enough of), fitting right in between the beauty of both artists' styles. Emily Jane White's new record is a folk masterpiece, as far as I'm concerned. Listen to it. It'll change you.

Favorite Tracks: The Black Dove, Nightmares On Repeat, Hands, Antechamber

Least Favorite Track: The Ledge

Rating: 89 / 100

Top 10 Albums Of 2016 (so far):

1. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
2. AURORA - All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend
3. Panic! At The Disco - Death Of A Bachelor
4. Deftones - Gore
5. Dream Theater - The Astonishing
6. Foxes - All I Need
7. Daughter - Not To Disappear
8. Gojira - Magma
9. Thrice - To Be Everywhere Is To Be Nowhere
10. Emily Jane White - They Moved In Shadow All Together

Chevelle - The North Corridor

When taking on a Chevelle record, you better know you're heading into the territory of nothing but jams. Their eight record The North Corridor is full of those big riffs, but does find its ways to make it sound repetitive, much like some criticisms of their previous albums have claimed. There hasn't been any curve in sound, if that's what you're looking for.

This album has a very safe alternative metal sound to it. The riffs are big and in your face, if not repetitive, and the spidery vocals and big choruses make up each track. Opening track 'Door To Door Cannibals' starts off with promise, but ends up just being boring, and by the final chorus has you waiting for the end to come. The Tool-esque melodies (the song's vocals has be thinking of 'Ticks & Leeches') give this track some endearing qualities to metal fans, and the big alt. metal chorus is also a treat. If you want a great chorus though, 'Enemies' is your song: its chorus is absolutely massive, though the verses are a bit stale.

The problem with this record is that yes, the riffs are big and metal, but they all kind of sound the same. 'Joyride (Omen)' has that big, upfront metal sound with the distorted bass but just fails to do anything else with its sound besides sound really standard. This album feels like it's full of attempts at something interesting, but none of these attempts got anywhere. 'Punchline' is full of references to jokes, which is lyrically amusing, but has no real place in the album. There's a lot of lyrics that just seem off in the record; 'Young Wicked' comes to mind - it feels almost like it was going for an 'Another Brick In The Wall' vibe - but in oddity it makes up for an engaging instrumental and progression. 'Shot From A Cannon' clocks in at a huge 8 minutes, but there's really no purpose for it to be that long. It's length can be thanked for a long, stale instrumental jam section complete with an uninteresting lead guitar and all. A very incompetent ending to an album that feels much the same. 'Rivers' also has that big instrumental ending, but in grandness it lacks substance to make it actually good.

Chevelle brought jams, sure. These jams get stale after hearing them consecutively on the album, sadly. There's little engagement on The North Corridor. Fans who were disappointed by their last effort La Gargola won't be impressed much by this release, either. It's stale and uninspired. Not much else to it.

Favorite Tracks: Enemies, Young Wicked

Least Favorite Tracks: Shot From A Cannon, Punchline

Rating: 56 / 100