As someone who listens to a ton of music, I'm not always swayed when a band proclaims they're 'different' or 'unique'. Yet, in Kentucky born band CHEST ROCKWELL's case, you can actually listen and believe their claim. These guys truly play music how they want it to sound. For me, their 6^th studio album "Ghost of a Man Still Alive" really is a bit hard to describe. It's Post Alternative Rock with Progressive and Hard Rock elements overwhelmingly throughout. Just add a futuristic aura. I can say, even my track by track below can't quite put their sound into words.

"As You Like" has a slow building intro, elements get added in every 30 seconds or so until about halfway through the song. Then the time signature and melodies shift at the 4-ish minute mark. While some of the riff styles feels like Alt Rock, the way the music layers and unfolds makes for quite a fascinating proggy opening track. "Metamorph" is considerably different with more of a distorted Post-Rock feel. It has a smooth, almost groovy melody and futuristic vibes. "Proteus" comes in massively with some low bass lines and chill retro rock style riffs like something by THE SWORD.  Something about the groove of this song is like swerving around a neon lit city on a futuristic hoverboard. "Archaeologist" keeps on the sci-fiesque feel from the previous tracks with some massive melodic moments, especially with the vocals. I got some great "Origin of Symmetry" era MUSE vibes from this track with the distorted and dramatic vocals and fun and fluttering melodies. "Paradox" is a heavier instrumental track full of chuggy basslines, some sweeping guitars, and just overall great Hard Rock elements all around. "Watch How I Fall Over" is a slower track, more of a ballad in some ways. It's certainly darker in feel, the guitars are slower and sadder, the distortion and reverb adds sad chaos to the overall melody. There's this urgency in everything as the song ends that made me have to pause for a moment and let it linger.

"El Anacronópete" is named after the story of a mad scientist who travels backward through time. There is this feeling of disbelief in the melody, the keys build this dreamy delirium that surrounds you as you listen. "Farewell, Voyager" continues the dreamy, space-like keys. You can almost picture just floating in the depths of outer space to this cosmic piano melody and interstellar bass line. The pacing of this song is like feeling your heartbeat in your head when you can't get your mind to slow down and the vocals are the thoughts racing through your mind. You can experience the feeling of fading into the unknown depths of space in this song and it sounds bittersweet yet blissful in this song's case. Yet, it leads you into the transitional track "Eternal Return" and you fall right into the closing track, "Cradle". This 8 minute instrumental epic begins with an synth fueled orchestra that ramps to larger and larger proportions with drums and other bits of percussion. This song stacks higher and higher, eventually adding in some Egyptian-esque melody about halfway through. It just keeps adding more dimension, more instruments, and more volume in general. It's like it's building a black hole of sound with how it just keeps growing until you're sucked in, and suddenly, there's nothing but silence.

Overall, this album is a fascinating journey through space and time. I really enjoy how it has some rad Alternative Rock feeling, but the crazy time signature changes and use of oodles of instruments and sounds keeps you from determining it as such. Essentially, I'd say this band is a morph of THE SWORD, MUSE, and PORCUPINE TREE yet it still feels more complex than even that blend could describe. It's unique. They created their own outer space with starlit rainbows and you ride through it on glittering spaceships that turn to rust and ruin in a blink of an eye. Every little element of each song is placed there for a reason and I have a feeling I'll discover more with another listen through... and another. I look forward to exploring CHEST ROCKWELL's galaxy again soon!