### Chelsea Grin: Evolve

#### 27/08/12 || Global Domination

A joint review by Pr0nogo and Averatu. They swear at the band, they swear at each other, and in the end they agree that Pr0nogo is a dragon.

Averatu: Let’s start at the start and rip on the beginning. The intro is made of cheese, not B-grade horror cheese, but the rank moldy blue cheese forgotten in your grandmother’s fridge, the one that turns the milk sour and peels paint. They bought the cheapest fucking keyboard they could find from a quivering crack addict especially for that one.

Pr0nogo: Let’s not forget the shitty euro-synth and boring overlays. None of this stuff is going to be presented live except from crappy backspeakers, so why the fuck would you put it into an album? You wouldn’t. I understand that some people think it’s good to experiment on EPs and deliver fleshed out ideas on LPs, but Chelsea Grin has failed to do both of these things thus far – all they’re doing with this EP is prancing through fields of gravy, but forgetting the meat and potatoes. Why?

Av: No keyboardist credited, so as you say, just more fluff. As for experimentation, once the band digested their meat and their potatoes, they took part in communally regurgitating riffs into the death-core mould. The formula is so limited that pretty soon you’ll have a VST plug in, you won’t need a band, just point and click.

Pr0: Then Attack Attack! will release six albums a year, instead of three! Chelsea Grin wasn’t really expected to deliver anything good this time around, despite the acquisition of a more technical guitarist. You have to remember that these guys are on Artery Records. Has anyone even heard of that record label? Probably not. What other bands are on their roster? A quick look at Wikipedia and we have bands like “A Bullet For a Pretty Boy” and “I Declare War.” Holy fuck.

Av: This is the best EP Whitechapel have done thus far.

Pr0: Nah, come on. Whitechapel had a decent effort with their latest album. Leagues better than this garbage. I mean, it’s still deathcore, but it’s not as Core-y (Taylor). Then again, I find way too many reminders of the horrible djent- and dub-core movements on Evolve. So many techno effects… So confusing for all the dancing monkeys at their concerts…

Av: The only other album by a deathcore band I’ve subjected myself to more than once was “In waking, divinity” by The Breathing Process, and that album suffered from the same syndrome. At times the keys clash so badly with the rest of the music and it all degenerates to massive quagmire of confusing noise.

Pr0: Sounds like my mother. Anyways, something I noticed about this record was that I didn’t want to listen to it, and it’s only twenty-one minutes long. Usually, I can take something that’s awful for a good half hour and write an honest review, but this time, I needed help. They got me good here – I’m just not pussy enough for this record.

Av: Jip, I’ve just gotten a crudload of albums to work on, and this time it’s all good, so at the moment I’m also finding it hard to force myself to listen to it again. Its too much riff scaffolding to support more break-downs. It really sounds like everything blazes by in a haze, and alas, the scaffolding is just too weak and collapses under the sheer magnitude of the mandatory break down. Even right after listening to it, its all gone, poof, like a puff of hairspray.

Pr0: Hairspray? I dare say this is worse than the hair metal bands of the ’80s. At least those guys gave GWAR a reason to come out of their icy fortress and make moderately-enjoyable music. Chelsea Grin is just… bad. Like Blood on the Dance Floor bad.

Av: Projectile-vomit on the dancefloor. Speaking, or typing, about hairspray, I can tell by the sound of this album these guys have fabulous hair. My sister would love to hang with them backstage to see what products they use.

Pr0: Did you hear? Someone actually passed out and died at their set. That’s how horrible they are. I mean, it’s one thing to play on Vans Warped Tour, but it’s another thing entirely to kill someone…

Av: I did not know that! So not only do they have great hair, but thanx to Vans they also have shoes to die for as well? And I see some nerd died playing “Diablo 3” forty hours straight.

Pr0: He can join the rising death toll that World of WarCrack has accumulated over the years. One thing that only slightly confuses me is that I don’t know how we’ll refer to these bands historically. I see it as just one more teen/scene heartthrob event, like Justin Timberlake or something. I don’t foresee these guys lasting very long; I think most deathcore bands are going to slowly die off as their former fans decide that they want something more brutal or more teengirly. Will we refer to them as the “crap metal bands from the ’00s” as I referred to the crap hair metal bands from the ’80s? I suppose we shall see.

Av: The demise of the core is inevitable, you can’t expect listeners to only consume the same 5 musical devices being rehashed so many times to the point where their mothers can’t even tell them apart, and as you say, unless they adapt rapidly, the fans will start exploring other darkened avenues and will probably discover actual death metal, or grind etc…..

Pr0: Hey, guess what? This EP doesn’t have as many breakdowns as Acacia Strain’s “Wormwood,” but the amount of poorly-implemented instrumental (read as: all of the instrumental) is embarrassingly high for the running time of twenty-one minutes. Bleh. Bands like Wretched and All Shall Perish have some nice instrumentation despite the deathcore label; I know deathcore can do better, so why is this plainly bad band exalted and propelled to the artificial high that it has? Silly people.

Av: You actually count the breakdowns you sad metal nerd? I think we must find you a girlfriend. I like how you try to find and point out the positive aspects, but to me, the only good core band is the one that broke up last week.

Pr0 Either that’s a saying or Averatsacu actually liked a deathcore band.

Pr0: I’m a dragon.

The verdict then:

Av: Despite all the hate I’ve spewed, I’ll admit they are technically proficient musos, and the band is tighter than a clam shell, but these days you have factories like Berklee literally spewing them out by the dozens. I’ll give it 3 out of 10.

Pr0: Fuck this band and fuck their mothers. Better than iwrestledabearonce. That’s about all I’ll say on the matter. 2 out of 10.

Pr0: Oh, and I’m still a fucking dragon. I don’t care what you say.

Av: You go boy. I just counted 3 guitarists?

- Information
- Released: 2012
- Label: Artery Recordings
- Website: www.chelseagrinmetal.com
- Band
- Alex Koehler: vocals
- Jacob Harmond: guitars
- Dan Jones: guitars
- Jason Richardson: guitars
- David Flinn: bass
- Andrew Carlston: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. The second coming
- 02. Lilith
- 03. Shot
- 04. Confession
- 05. Don’t ask don’t tell