Any musician or band that can string together multiple good albums in a row deserves all of the appreciation. When you consider that repeating artistic success is a difficult task on its own, finding a band who’s done it since their inception is far more rare. Anberlin, Deftones, Sevendust, Thrice, Radiohead all prove good examples of building on past release, and Chevelle does it just as well – but in their own particular fashion.
Truthfully, Chevelle have always succeeded by adding small tweaks to their alternative metal formula on each record. The North Corridor, released on July 8th, 2016, is no exception. Bookended by two of the heaviest songs they’ve ever written, they also occupy different layers of Chevelle’s DNA. “Door To Door Cannibals” arrives in a more straightforward fashion, with a start-stop tempo that easily gives the hook to one catchy guitar riff. Meanwhile, “Shot From A Cannon” throws the rulebook out the window. This song is over 8 minutes long, and lest anyone think that Chevelle is aiming for intentional radio play, they offer instead a heavy sludge metal plate that proves as entrancing as it does (much like) suffocating. Oh, and by the way – this is just two of the album’s ten tracks. Yeah, it’s pretty great.
