:: Chimaira - Resurrection

Chimaira

Over the course of three full length albums, Cleveland based metal act Chimaira has slowly evolved throughout twelve years to become a major force within the U.S. metal scene. But for all the praised lauded upon their last release, I couldn’t help but feel that something was missing in some of the tracks, which meant that while ‘Chimaira’ was by far Chimaria’s strongest release to date, it was also an album that was too inconsistent at times to be hailed as real contender for the ‘Album Of The Year’ title. In the two years since, Chimaira has split with Roadrunner Records, signed with both Ferret Music (US) and Nuclear Blast Records (rest of the world) and reunited with original drummer Andols Herrick after splitting with Kevin Talley, all of which are factors that have inspired Chimaira in their own way on their fourth full length release ‘Resurrection’.

From the opening title track ‘Resurrection’, it’s clear that the band has lost none of the heaviness from their previous album, but instead have refined their song writing style to ensure that the song itself is far more memorable and varied, which only bodes well for the remainder of the album. ‘Pleasure In Pain’ and the heavy-handed ‘Worthless’ mark a move away from the melodic death metal overtones of the last album to show a far greater thrash influence, but it’s the epic (almost ten minute long) ‘Six’, ‘End It All’ and ‘Killing The Beast’ where Chimaira perfectly balance their newfound thrash aggression, their keen sense of melody and Spicuzza’s clever use of atmospherics on the keyboards. ‘Black Heart’, ‘No Reason To Live’ and ‘The Flame’ could have easily been lifted off the band’s last album, but it’s the blackened thrash of ‘Empire’, slower crawl of ‘Kingdom Of Heartache’ and the all out drive of ‘Paralysed’ that make up for anything lacking in the former tracks. While ‘Resurrection’ falls short of being hailed as an absolute classic, the album at least surpasses anything that Chimaira have released in the past by a long shot. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this is the sound of Chimaira being resurrected, but it’s certainly a renewal, and a strong one at that.