I remember very distinctly hearing "Crewcabanger" from Chelsea Grin's self titled EP in 2008, and the excitement surrounding the announcement of their debut full-length, Desolation of Eden, in 2010. Between those releases, there was a lot of discussion when that album would finally arrive and what shape it would take, as fans had little more than a short EP to obsess over. The band's reputation had already outgrown the modest runtime of its available material. A similar case was that of Thy Art Is Murder during the gap from Infinite Death EP (2008) and The Adversary (2010), though that is a story for another time.
Desolation of Eden is still widely regarded as one of deathcore's landmark releases, perhaps alongside My Damnation (2011). Personally, however, nothing ever matched how it felt during those first years. I never fully absorbed the albums that followed throughout the mid-2010s, and, in fact, did not return to Chelsea Grin until the release of Suffer in Heaven / Suffer in Hell double album in 2022. This encouraged me to work backwards through the now grown discography of the band, making my first stop 2018's Eternal Nightmare, second release under Rise Records and the first to feature a new version of the band.
Structural changes had Chelsea Grin slim down to a quintet, with Stephen Rutishauser taking full control of the guitar sector, while longtime vocalist Alex Koehler had been replaced by Tom Barber, who had arrived fresh after leaving Lorna Shore. Barber delivers a commendable performance throughout Eternal Nightmare, including a thankfully selective usage of the famous "blegh", effective as it always is. However, the issue for me lies in the songwriting. Nearly every track leans heavily on the familiar, paint-by-numbers deathcore conventions that don't develop naturally, but instead feel like a sequence of disconnected ideas based on how we know the genre sounds like.
Interestingly enough, I would not describe the album as repetitive though, on the contrary to more popular outlets out there. The problem is more that different sections struggle to become memorable. The heaviness is certainly there, as is the expected polished production, but what feels absent is the distinctive personality of Chelsea Grin as it was built in their earlier work, particulary up to the first half of the 2010s. Tracks such as "Across the Earth" —despite its elegant piano introduction—, "9:30am", and "Limbs" leave surprisingly little despite their impact at face value. Likewise, "Scent of Evil" proceeds in a mild mid-tempo that ultimately comes across like a filler, and "Hostage" is based entirely on a single prog / djenty stop-start breakdown melody (love-it-or-hate-it).
Eternal Nightmare opens with its stronger material, at the introductory sample and the notable "Dead Rose", while "The Wolf" is one of my favorites due to its mechanical tempo and heaviness. Fourth number "See You Soon" has one of the album best riff grooves, although it is somewhat brought down by the track's sloppy pacing later. Barber's delivery shines, and some of the record's strongest moments arrive at the significantly slower breakdowns of "Nobody Listened" and "Outliers", foreshadowing the direction deathcore had took with the employment of this vital element of the genre. At the end, chanting "welcome to your eternal nightmare" remains another highlight of the album.
The professionalism is in place here in terms of presentation and assembly, designed to satisfy the genre's audience, and admittedly, anyone looking for an addition to their gym playlist. It's packed with enough hooks to keep deathcore fans engaged, but for me, there is a certain fluctuation of the songwriting level that affects the outcome in a way that I can eventually not fully roll with. If this style or Chelsea Grin is your natural habitat, I bet Eternal Nightmare is a great record, and you'll enjoy it more than me.
No comments:
Post a Comment