5 keepers
keeper avg .454
Grayslake, Illinois nu metal band Chevelle hit the big time with their second album "Wonder What's Next," which continues to be their best-selling album to date. "Family System"**** opens the album with the kind of chunky riffs that frequently earn the band comparisons to Tool, while similarities between the voices of frontmen Pete Loeffler and Maynard James Keenan are undeniable. Not that Pete can change his voice, and indeed it's his vocal chops, as well as some mighty catchy choruses, that raise the swinging singles "Closure"**** and the heavier "The Red"**** ("So lay down, The threat is real" song) above the general mediocrity of the genre.
Like some critics, I think in terms of instrumentation Chevelle sound more like Deftones, though without (Deftones guitarist) Stephen Carpenter's harmonic complexity; unfortunately Chevelle usually lacks the nuance that counters all the Deftones' raging intensity, and the scream-y "Forfeit," the mostly 2-note "Comfortable Liar," and even the popular single "Send the Pain Below," whose skipping rhythm was pretty much borrowed from "Be Quiet and Drive (Far Away)" (1998), come off as Deftones copies without all the good stuff.
Moreover, after "The Red" the middle of the album generally sinks into the clichés of nu metal, consisting of long stretch of blah punctuated by screaming-time. While especially forgettable, "Don't Fake This" and "Grab Thy Hand," which sounds like Tool-lite, can at least be called songs; the title song is just monotonous industrial noise. Fortunately the album rallies at the end with the cool, rattling bass riff introducing "An Evening with El Diablo"****, and the bleak acoustic closing ballad "One Lonely Visitor"**** (the "am I alone in here" song). So while there is some filler here, Chevelle definitely stepped up their game since their debut album, earning some critical kudos.
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