With this weeks news that Sonic Youth front man Thurston Moore going black metal super group Twilight , it makes Chrome Waves self titled e.p seem that much more essential. I like Sonic Youth they provided a sound track to many high school drug binges and subsequent bouts of melancholy, but I feel the same way about Johnny Marr playing in Modest Mouse. Like Twilight Chrome Waves features a Nachtmystium connection in Jeff Wilson the guitarist who has also played in Wolvhammer. The band also includes Stavros from the atlas moth and Drummer Bob Fouts from Gates of Slumber behind the kit .
if we are just looking for a reason to call this black metal , you might be able to really go out on a limb and justify this claim with the vocals as maybe black metal is found in the howling, though it crosses over into that deaf heaven post hardcore grey area so this is not your too troo for school flavor of cvltness , though what American metal really is ? Twilight has more of the scathing chaotic tension to feel more like black metal than these guys, who never build up them momentum, I can have repeat listens of this e.p. with ease due to the lull of its hypnotic octave chords. Sure it's a definable sum of its influences but it's execution manages to capture enough feeling to obscure this fact.
There are some really pretty builds of transcendence that is like a heavy version of the Gloria Record to my ears, these guys all have Mogwai on their iPods as well. They create a drone of sorts in they manner some of the sonic hammer of guitars fall. Some of the octave swells in the guitar progressions are a little post hard core in the vein of like "you fail me" era Converge.Come to think of it the second little instrumental reminds me of Converge as well, perhaps if the were trying to cover " please please please let me get what I want" .
The vocals work as an abrasive layer similar to converges approach, it's a little one dimensional, but the majestic flow, The half time drop back varies this droning nature.the vocal overdubs are well layered and this album has a very clean production. The one stand out blast beat comes at the end of the song and is a breif tip of the viking helmet. so if you want to get into black metal but are trying to build yourself up into being able to endure excessive blasting then this is a good sparse entry point, as must of the drumming ,keep things at slower pace but not at a doom crawled march, ating of the riff age makes up for this . The guitar solos soar out from this sonic build to a pretty epic effect.
That cursed armored truck stomps out almost into a gallops the vocals lower a bit allowing the The subtle keyboard layers really add to it ,every thing on this ep is done ingood taste perhaps almost to a fault as metal is supposed tone over the top, but the songs feel really good to me so even the kind of middle of the road stance this album takes is excused, this is uncharacteristcfor me as nothing sounds dark or ominous, the screams sure are wretched but not hateful, in now way would you ever suspect these guys of burning a church down which is why I was be more likely to lump them in with post metalscreams to be a little more dynamic they stay in the same sonic range through out though.cMy only complaint is at twenty eight minutes the two three minute instrumentals could have been time better spent on another song, even. Cover would have worked .
I have probably given more thought in trying to score this album than I should, if faced with having to conserve space on my iPod the two instrumentals would have to go, so I pondered if if should even count them as songs or are they just an intro and a transitioning interlude? While the wheel isn't being reinvented the actual songs are preformed pretty flawlessly and this album sounds great. It's withstood multiple listens with little effort.I think given the middle of the road nature of albums rather passive aggressive personality an 8 is fair enough.
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