“No one’s coming to save us // recurring dreams take their vengeance.”
One thing is for certain, there are a whole lot of bands writing heavy music that is a mathy hardcore/metalcore mix. Nashville quartet Chamber is no exception, however, they’re here to show you why they deserve special consideration with their sophomore album A Love to Kill For, and I think their argument is convincing.
Chamber have put out a record here that is blistering in pace and tone, and it doesn’t really let up. The 1-2 punch of an opening in the tracks “Chamber” and “Retribution” shows just that. As an aside, I find it interesting that the band titled a track after the band’s name and it’s just a 1-minute cut, but I suppose The 1975 have done that a couple of times now. But back to the intro, “Chamber” is full of heavy sweeping with a dissonant riff backing it. Punctuated by vocalist Jacob Lilly’s solid screams, it’s a good pace setter. “Retribution” continues this with heavy, mosh inducing instrumentals. It’s also at this point where one can see that Chamber’s lyrics are dark, yet poetic, which I certainly enjoy: “No one’s coming to save us // recurring dreams take their vengeance.“.
Continuing on, “At My Hands” is a contender for my favorite track on the record. It fits a whole lot into its 3-minute run time, with multiple switch-ups and different styles of hardcore that are all executed perfectly. It starts with what is essentially a metal riff akin to an old A7X album before devolving into chugging riffage. Jacob also screams, early on, “In your image I am fucking cracked, shattered, covered up” and I am nothing if not a sucker for lists in lyrics. The instrumental just continuously pops off from here before it slows down and the drums are the main focus, which then transitions into mathy bridge into a spacey, breakdown infused outro. I was not kidding when I said it fits a lot in, and it’s awesome.
Then comes a couple noteworthy tracks in “Tremble” and “To Die in the Grip of Poison”. The former has a more echoey approach to the vocal production for the first half. There’s also the lyrical chop of “I’d trade forever for one more day // in the sun where I belong” which is equal parts beautiful and sad. The latter song doesn’t impress until the end, I think, where the track becomes more methodical in delivering its heaviness. There’s less overall noise so what is there becomes more accentuated, giving “To Die…” a great outro.
Then comes a bit of an interesting section of the album. We get “One Final Sacrifice”, which truthfully comes across as a standard hardcore track, but then comes tracks of 12 seconds and 25 seconds, if you can call them tracks. The 25 second one, “Our Beauty Decayed, Nothing Was Left”, boasts the most satisfying chunk among the tracks listed within this paragraph, and that kind of makes the whole package okay.
Unfortunately, the album then hits a point where the tracks lose a bit of what I think sets Chamber apart, and the tracks fade into the background as a result. No matter how many times I listen to this album, this section fails to grip me. It picks back up with “Mirror”, thankfully, which is a mere 40 seconds of a blissful guitar tone that sounds juicy and chaotic. “Cyanide Embrace” maintains a bit of the chaotic nature of “Mirror”, and also incorporates various screamed vocal types for another degree of dynamism. There’s a point where the track sounds almost sludgey too.
This brings us to the title track, “A Love to Kill For”, which is a monstrous feat. To start, I love the lyrical theme of decay, persisting after death, what is left behind, etc. There’s also a moment where the vocals get chopped up a bit for a melodic section that was well done, shoutout to Randy LaBoeuf for that. There’s a great buildup to what very well could be considered the climax of the album, if an album with this consistent blistering pace could be considered to have a climax. Nonetheless, it’s a cathartic, well written moment. And to top it off for good measure, “Hopeless Portrait” is an extra minute of head banging inducing goodness.
Chamber are, as advertised, a fantastic blend of metal and hardcore with a handful of other influences melded together into a forward thinking package. It does fall flat at times, but fans of music that prioritize crushing heaviness should feel right at home.
7/10
You can pre-order Chamber’s sophomore album, A Love to Kill For here before it releases this Friday.