Chelsea Grin : "Suffer in Heaven"

The bulk of death core / metal core  sounds the same to me. In some ways it feels like the 2nd coming of Nu-metal. It tends to rely on break downs too much, thus why I do not review a ton of it here, but there are some bands who have made enough of a name for themselves in the genre that I am willing to check them out and hear what the hype is about. Chelsea Grin is one of those bands. Last year they released "Suffer in Hell" this time around the suffering has spread into heaven. This death core band is at their best when sounding less death metal that their peers and staring deeper into the darkness. This darkness is best conveyed with the experimentations with electronic sounds.

 Does it take hints from bands like Code Orange in this regard? Yes to some extent. It also reminds me of a less grooving Drop Dead Gorgeous. Two songs in the heaviness is enough for me, but it's at the this point where that novelty wears off and I need to pay more attention to the finer points of songwriting. The verses prove more grooving that the explosive chorus. For every song like "Soul Slave" where they blast by on sheer heaviness alone there is a song that is more solidly written than you might expect. "The Mind of God' hooks you in just enough to prove they do care about writing songs and not just pumping out mean spirted riffs. They continue down a darker and more malicious road with "Yhrom the Giant". The vocals serve more purpose, and held navigate the stormy drone.

They do manage to create enough of a groove on "Sing to the Grave' to keep my interest. However when we get to the last song , aside from the bits of ambience at the edges of the distorted walls slamming into , there is not a great deal of variation to separate it from the previous song. The vocals have begun to get tedious. The guitar solos are above decent, but the song should not just be bookends for shredding. The dark grooves go along way to counter balance this to the point of me being able to give this album an 8.5, so I get why kids like these guys. If you are a fan they are doing what you want them to do, perhaps not as catchy as the best death metal has to offer, but they are writing songs and not just obsessed  with having the most brutal guitar tone.