[August 28th 2012 – Good Fight/E1 Music // Find it at: iTunes | Amazon]
______________________________________________________________
With their own breed of southern metalcore on their sleeve, The Chariot’s only weakness is that they don’t have one. Five albums into a career with too many intimate moments to name, they’ve split a record into two sides and ten recordings to scratch out the eyes of their own personal boundaries, culminating in a whole new hue of creativity. On One Wing, the volume of their impulsive hardcore consistently crosses its limits as timed drops in sound stagger like a knife hitting a knee (“Forget”) and even when the four-piece seem to embrace the basics of punk, they’re still rabid (“in”, “Love.”). But where Long Live and Wars And Rumors Of Wars slept with the motto “explode, punish, repeat”, One Wing gives birth to compelling material manufactured by ruthless imagination.
On Side A, a hymn featuring female vocals gives way to “First”, a track built from raw distortion and a Western composition that even enunciates with the crack of a whip to signal the re-entrance of spoken authority. That’s the open wound on the album you can’t help but look at. Josh Scogin’s vocal ability to emotionally engage and adapt pushes “Speak” and “Tongues” to transform into arrangements that aren’t just plays on piano chords. The most disassembling moment of the record though is its conclusion; hand-in-hand with One Wing’s depth in songwriting, “Cheek” borrows a three-minute excerpt from the film The Great Dictator with the band’s stab at being unconventional becoming human, inventive and prolific. Like the kids said 21 months ago, long live The Chariot.
Check Out: “Speak”, “Love.”, “and”
[Find updates on new albums, daily music news and other things on Twitter]