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Courtesy photo Pete Loeffler (guitar), Dean Bernardini (bass) and Sam Loeffler (drums) make up the Chicago-based band Chevelle. The trio released its latest album, Vena Sera, April 3. |
Justin Smith
Entertainment Writer, ocolly.com
Chevelle is back with another album.
On their newest release, Vena Sera, the band retreats to the heavy post-grunge distortion it became known for.
Whenever a band releases a new album, it should create something not only progressive from previous releases, but also within the album itself. An album should be a complete package of an exploration of ideas — highs, lows, harmony, dissonance, etc., which create comparisons and contrasts sonically, lyrically and emotionally.
Vena Sera prefers to stick to dissonance, interestingly delivered with perfect pitch and only hints at possible higher harmony. This relentless sonic drive through the song sequence creates a drone. There are songs that slow down the pace, like “Saferwaters” and “Well Enough Alone,” but the feeling the listener is left with isn’t any different from the rest of the album.
The album, Chevelle’s fourth, shows some promise at the beginning. “Brainiac” includes the lines: “We know we miss one cell/ Should’ve combined to save brains./ How ‘bout I teach you to crawl./ Lift up the head so proud./ Imagine this one cell.” This gives the album an interesting articulation of thoughts to build from but instead takes the easy way out with songs calculated in the recording lab to get the teenage adrenaline going.
One song that definitely questions what Chevelle was thinking is the middle-of-the-album track, “The Fad.” With a chorus of “Let’s call it the chase, I’ll call it a phase/ once the fad permeates, it’s hip to care, hip to hate it,/ Laugh at the violence,” it’s hard to figure out who the band is trying to reach out to.
It continues later with “So count us into that Gucci clan.” At least there’s some passion in the delivery this time.
It seems that if the band had spent only a couple more weeks in the studio, the album could have been better, but the corporate wizard had his eye on the “radio hit” meter, and the leftover songs were thrown in like a bunch of B-sides to pad the packaging.
The first single, “Well Enough Alone,” even starts with a sigh. By the end of the song, it is hard to tell whether that sigh was made out of boredom or fatigue.
There’s no end to Chevelle’s dirty, stripped-down guitar sounds in sight, it would be nice next time down the road to hear more contrasts and experiments with or beyond that patented sound.
What separates one thing from another is variation, but if this album sells well, what’s the point of fixing a broken record?
On their newest release, Vena Sera, the band retreats to the heavy post-grunge distortion it became known for.
Whenever a band releases a new album, it should create something not only progressive from previous releases, but also within the album itself. An album should be a complete package of an exploration of ideas — highs, lows, harmony, dissonance, etc., which create comparisons and contrasts sonically, lyrically and emotionally.
Vena Sera prefers to stick to dissonance, interestingly delivered with perfect pitch and only hints at possible higher harmony. This relentless sonic drive through the song sequence creates a drone. There are songs that slow down the pace, like “Saferwaters” and “Well Enough Alone,” but the feeling the listener is left with isn’t any different from the rest of the album.
The album, Chevelle’s fourth, shows some promise at the beginning. “Brainiac” includes the lines: “We know we miss one cell/ Should’ve combined to save brains./ How ‘bout I teach you to crawl./ Lift up the head so proud./ Imagine this one cell.” This gives the album an interesting articulation of thoughts to build from but instead takes the easy way out with songs calculated in the recording lab to get the teenage adrenaline going.
One song that definitely questions what Chevelle was thinking is the middle-of-the-album track, “The Fad.” With a chorus of “Let’s call it the chase, I’ll call it a phase/ once the fad permeates, it’s hip to care, hip to hate it,/ Laugh at the violence,” it’s hard to figure out who the band is trying to reach out to.
It continues later with “So count us into that Gucci clan.” At least there’s some passion in the delivery this time.
It seems that if the band had spent only a couple more weeks in the studio, the album could have been better, but the corporate wizard had his eye on the “radio hit” meter, and the leftover songs were thrown in like a bunch of B-sides to pad the packaging.
The first single, “Well Enough Alone,” even starts with a sigh. By the end of the song, it is hard to tell whether that sigh was made out of boredom or fatigue.
There’s no end to Chevelle’s dirty, stripped-down guitar sounds in sight, it would be nice next time down the road to hear more contrasts and experiments with or beyond that patented sound.
What separates one thing from another is variation, but if this album sells well, what’s the point of fixing a broken record?
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