Post hardcore from a band that has been a forerunner of the genre for nearly a decade now. This is The Chariot’s fifth album and from what I garner from a bit of research the band throws musical curveballs on all their releases though this is my first experience with them annoyingly for me as I do have a slight penchant for hardcore and its sub-genres as you have probably guessed by now if you’re a regular reader on Ave Noctum. Fronted by ex-Norma Jean shouter Josh Scogins, the band has unleashed a ferocious yet highly eclectic album that clocks in around 30 minutes and contains ten one word song title tunes, that more or less form a statement when you read them as ‘Forget Not Your First Love. Speak In Tongues And Cheek’. The cover art shows what looks like the scribbling of some deranged psychopath or a tormented child.
So onto the actual tunes and “Forget” immediately grabs you by the throat with a manic hardcore massacre that could melt glass. The vocals are venomously spat out; rabid and caustic like battery acid the emotion here is to simply rip your face off initially. The maniacal guitar playing has obvious Dillinger traits and guitar runs from the Kurt Ballou (Converge) school of fretboard acrobatics. There is a mathcore approach on “Not”, with trademark guitar pinches, as the tune is very pissed off and successfully rips you a new one even if you didn’t want it. The very short “Your” begins with female vocals and a small amount of harmonising blends with an organ before being vapourised by “First”. A radio vocal delivery, Josh tones it down a bit as the tune takes on a slight country feel with steel guitar like twang and echo. I kid you not I wrote down spaghetti western and images of The Good The Bad The Ugly rushed into my mind, minus overdubbing, as the style here and just to set in concrete my comparison of spag western a trumpet comes in with plenty of snare rolling whip cracking. Very strange indeed.
“Love” lacks anything but, as the hooks and riffs hit like a nail gun riffing machine making “Speak” seem very calm and quite sad really with the piano start the shouted vocals exhibit pain and agony from every crevice. The bounce laden almost two-stepping riffing of “In” shows how catchy you can make noise feel, made even more bamboozling by the weird vocals. The slower “Tongues” possesses an intricate guitar piece that is tech saturated as guitar hooks slam in from all directions. The break for a solitary drum beat and piano is again totally unconventional. Penultimate frantic song is “And” that begins with some Hawaiian like melodies before side swiping into another dimension with riffing combustion and a melody that actually has a tad of djent about it though its only momentary. Closing this zany album is “Cheek” which is very low key, but angry vocally via a spoken voice style. As the tune develops the speech from Charlie Chaplin’s ‘The Great Dictator” is used, professing the dangers of humanities greed, selfishness etc. The monologue works in conjunction with the gentle guitar backing and some subtle effects. The song weaves with the speech and leaves the album with some provoking thoughts amongst the guitar distortion. Not one for your average metaller, this is post-hardcore violence with schizophrenic twists and turns at every opportune moment, of which there are countless.
8/10 (Martin Harris)
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