Chimaira’s second album is a me(n)tal monster

On the day the caricature of Shlock-CorpRock, Marilyn Manson to you, releases his ‘The Golden Age Of Grotesque’ album with all the propaganda machine behind it, a brilliant disc has been soft sold and it is hard to imagine a finer Metal album on the market, and that includes the imminent Deftones’ eponymous disc. Let us present, Chimaira.

The band’s second album, ‘The Impossibility Of Reason’, is an enormous development from the debut, ‘Pass Out Of Existence’ (2001), inasmuch that it sounds like it’s been made by a different outfit. “Look at some of the most notorious metal bands out there,” vocalist Mark Hunter argues, “you can’t put on any of their records without noticing a change from record to record. That is what we strive to do.”

They certainly have done it on this one, a straight-metal record with no uneconomical bull. Well, it does get a bit progtastic on the concluding ‘Implements Of Destruction’ but it is all done without losing the power to broaden it a very complex sonic picture. Chimaira’s songs are like towers, built to withstand the attacks of marauding infidels (of crossover) and impure (fusionists)… In the Chimaira’s ‘triangle of influences’ chime Fear Factory (even ‘The Dehumanizing Process’ title fits), Slayer and Alice In Chains.

Driven by twin-bassdrums of Andols Herrick and detailed by a soaring, tough and yet nimble fretwork by Rob Arnold provides a perfect platform for Hunter’s raw’n’ready vocals. From the opening ‘Cleansation’, it is intense in the chamber of brutal delights, only to kick you even harder with the title track. ‘Pictures In The Gold Room’ segues into this Layne Staley-like passage before whipping you into a total frenzy!

‘Power Trip’ is a disturbingly dissonant and flying at near-supersonic speed; ‘Pure Hatred’ is misantropically themed and sounding so, ‘Overlooked’ is something AudioSlave may want to have a listen to in an attempt to improve their tonal output. Tagged ‘The New Wave Of American Heavy Metal’, they are ‘supported’ by a noise-veteran, Kerry King of Slayer. As the press-release states, “If it’s good enough for Slayer, who are you to argue?” No neeeed, actually!

Rock-devotion of Chimaira vs ready-to-ruck of MM? I know which way my allegiance leans…

8/10