Having absolutely fallen in love with their last album, The Impossibility Of Reason, I was extremely anticipating this release. As a matter of fact I jumped all over it as soon as it came up as a possible review for the magazine. Also, if you have a chance to see them in concert it is a must. Even if you don't really like them, they just have this energy that is indescribable with the light show and the crowd interaction...well, back to the recorded music, let's get this show on the road.
The band started out in 1998 with Jason Hagar, Mark Hunter, Rob Arnold,  Jim La Marca, Andols Herrick and Chris Spicuzz and they recorded the EP This Present Darkness. Next they got signed to Roadrunner Records to record their next album Pass Out Of Existence, but Hagar would bow out shortly after the recording was done in 2001. Over the next few years members dabbled in side projects, but then reforming the following year to record the album The Impossibility Of Reason, then tour with Lamb Of God, Atreyu, and Eighteen Visions as well as a tour with In Flames & Soilwork. After the last tour, Andols Herrick departed the band as the drummer, and having built a relationship with Soilwork, Chimaira stole their drummer Richard Evensand. They did a couple of tours in Europe and then Richard had problems with visa shit, so the band again switched drummers. This time they went with Kevin Talley that was with at one time or another Dying Fetus, Suffocation and Misery Index. Next up is more touring and somehow fitting the recording of this album in. Please try to see them at Sounds Of The Underground Tour this summer, you won't be sorry.
The album begins with one of the tracks that would be perfect to open a concert, a nice slow quiet intro and then the vocals just rip that song a nice asshole and the music starts. Every time I listen to that song, Nothing Remains, it just gets me so pumped up that I want to start jumping up and down and breaking everything. The guitars are absolutely godly, fricking technical and crunchy as hell. Then on to track 2 and this is where we kind of run into a problem. The rest of the album sounds awesome but it just pretty much has the same sound. There just is not enough variation from the sound from song to song. Granted each song sounds different but almost exactly the same. The sound of the guitars just has that same crunchy feel to them. The vocals also face the problem, there just is not enough variation. Sure the guitar solos mix it up and what not, but to the average listener's ear they would sound all the same for the most part.
To conclude, this album is great, I love the sound of what they've produced on this release because there is no real difference in the way it sounds from Impossibility Of Reason. Though for some reason I still love it. I guess since I started getting into Progressive Metal, I just almost expect the sound to vary like a Prog album, but it doesn't. So, some words of advice to Chimaira: keep the shredding going, but add some more variation to the overall sound of the album.