Track Listing
01. Judgment02. Desolation of Eden
03. False Sense of Sanity
04. Sonnet of the Wretched
05. Cheyne Stokes
06. The Human Condition
07. Elysium
08. Recreant
09. Cast From Perfection
10. Revenant
11. Wasteland
Tags: Chelsea Grin, Suicide Silence, Whitechapel
A “Chelsea Grin” may be best known a popular and gruesome torture method, but the band that’s taken that term as their name will have you smiling from ear to ear. The Utah based outfit’s debut album, Desolation of Eden, is head and shoulders above the material it is chiefly derived from. You’ll hear plenty of Suicide Silence and Whitechapel in this album, but you’ll also hear a touch of originality and poise that helps keep Chelsea Grin from falling strictly into copy-cat territory.
Meaty chugging, buzzing fills, bristling bass, and sweeping solos: definitely the ingredients for some epic metal. Chelsea Grin brings them in spades. Fans of Suicide Silence will feel right at home when popping in this disc. Chelsea Grin hail from the school of massive chugging and thuddingly heavy breakdowns. The real separation between Grin and the other stalwart deathcore acts comes when their guitarists start amping up the trills and solos. They stick to a minor Egyptian/Arabian scale and it does wonders for keeping things interesting. Tracks like “Revenant” and “The Human Condition” are teeming with expansive and technical solos, sweeps, and trills that are beyond infectious; I’ve found myself looping some songs for over half an hour.
If you’ve heard Suicide Silence’s recent release No Time to Bleed, you’re already attuned to the mix offered on Desolation of Eden. The guitars are thick and muddy with a razor-edge to the higher notes. Chugs are heavy and reverberate with a good cabby sound while the solos and trills sustain nearly-forever and echo ominously on their cessation. The bass rounds out the lowest end, following the guitars with a humming precision that is both audible and non-distracting. The drumming is spot on with the guitars (the guitars drive everything here) and exhibit a varied technicality that blows most other drumming efforts in this genre away. The vocals are Suicide Silence to a tee, with annoyingly high screeching growls and very low gutturals spewing the lyrics forth. It’s just a shame that the high screeches are so damn annoying. I didn’t like it when Suicide Silence did it and I certainly don’t like it now. I’ve heard cats howl less annoyingly than this. Oh, and despite having a very varied and catchy song formula, you will get a tad bit of déjà vu from time to time, especially if skipping ahead. Some song intros will sound nearly the same as the band hardly ever varies their chug patterns or keys.
If you’re into deathcore, this album is for you. It’s the catchiest effort I’ve come across from the Suicide Silence mold of bands and I can’t recommend it highly enough. For a bunch of kids from Utah, that used to go touring in a van and slept in Wal-Mart parking lots, Chelsea Grin have a ton of talent that shines through on this record.
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One Comment
February 10th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
excellent, nice review, i’ve pre-ordered the album so it’s nice to know that it’s going to be good, and don’t hate on the highs blud :(