CHIMAIRA—THE AGE OF HELL

LABEL: WWW.EONEMETAL.COM

BAND WEBSITE: WWW.CHIMAIRA.COM

BY: STEPHANIE STEVENS

RATE:  8/10

It happens to all bands so this is nothing new but after a long time together you may lose factors of your unit due to issues. I was surprised to find out this happened to Clevelands very own  CHIMAIRA but to put it in simple terms “shit happens” and people move on and that is exactly what flagship members Mark Hunter, Rob Arnold and Matt Devaies did. Maybe they brought the fustration or dissapointment they had about the losses into the studio (I don’t know for sure I’m just totally guessing) but what they accomplished was something that sounds like those emotions. The threesome pretty much wrote and arranged all the record themselves along with long time producer Ben Schigel and then they added band members to bring it to life live.

So on THE AGE OF HELL  everything about Chimaira is transmitted in aggressive beauty and bloody violence,  praising their ability to turn out brutal riffing with beautiful melody. BEYOND THE GRAVE is  the most accurate sound of evil beauty there is on the record, they have this deep dark backdrop of sound that penetrates your soul. Its just a ballad of metal beauty, but don’t think the band got soft  the rest of the disc will rip your head off.  BORN IN BLOOD is probably my favorite off the CD because it never stops with the relentless drive, these incredible guitar riffs and just assaulting rhythmn section but bleeds with melody and headbanging ruckus. Halfway through the track when you think it couldn’t get anymore darker or faster these guys turn up the heat on the song and it really brings it to a metal end!! LOSING MY MIND  has evil vocal assaults intertwining with melodic calming attributes but also clearly shows  the bands  signature groove. TRIGGER FINGER shows off Arnolds shredding techinques and will make young musicians or crazed fans wonder how the hell do you actually play this song!!

CHIMAIRA has never let the metal community down they bring techincal prowess, full range of dynamics, songwriting that is reality driven and emotionally mind numbing. If you had to describe CHIMAIRA in one word I would have to go with, authentic !! They don’t experiement with sound too much cause what you hear has worked so why change something that works so well but it’s the way they calculate and put their musicianship down on disc is what drives fans to come out in the thousands to see them live and buy their material.  THE AGE OF HELL is one hell of a ride so why don’t we all get on the metal rollercoaster.