Chaotic Past - Yer-In

1. Tube
2. Summer Street
3. Hector
4. Room 28
5. They Saved The Face
6. Stability Song
7. Comadome
8. Ole Brown Door
9. Restless Whole
10. Empty House
11. Cartridge
12. Bondage Between The Mountains
     

Album Cover:

Total Playing Time: 45:16 m:s

Review date: 31/03/2000

www.chaoticpast.com 

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Chaotic Past consists of Chris Neumann of vocals, bass, Moog and harmonica, Sam McCall on guitars, backing vocals and keyboards, and Ross Kantor on drums/percussion and backing vocals.

This is a really strange one to get your head round. Chaotic Past have thrown a bucket load of styles into melting pot to create their own sound. Every time I listen to this I pick out another element. First off, I heard the modern/post-grunge thing and the blues, which made the album feel disjointed. Then I picked up on the Metallica bits, then the metal bits, then the progressive bits, and so it goes on. It takes a while, but eventually it all fits together.

"Tube" kicks off the album in an electrified-Hootie kind of a way. As a result the bluesy start of "Summer Street" comes as a surprise. The song has mostly a Southern Rock feel, but the chorus is decidedly more modern sounding. On "Hector" punk does battle with metal, with metal gaining the upper hand thanks to the guitar solo. The drums, bass and guitar riffs of "Room 28" say Metallica, but the vocals speak of something altogether more modern. "They Saved The Face" almost has me beat - Rush-style drums and bassline, blues and almost spoken vocals. Suddenly after all that chaos comes some fuzzy guitar sitting on top of lightly strummed blues guitar with a Hammond-style keyboard backing it up. However, the chorus of "Stability Song" keeps it sounding contemporary. For me it is the album's highlight. "Comadome" reminds me of Tesla's acoustic jam album. "Ole Brown Door" sounds like more Metallica before developing into a jazzy blues verse and a heavy and grungy chorus. "Restless Whole" is one of the quieter moments and has a sparse spooky vibe about it. On "Empty House" we get a trad-blues chorus and grungy verse. Then with about one and a half minutes to go the guitarist cranks it up in true HM style, before it is back to the trad-blues for the ending. "Cartridge" jumps around a variety of styles from quiet acoustic to a punk-style noise-fest, with some good guitar work in there as well. The almost 7 mins "Bondage Between The Mountains" mixes progressive elements with slow blues and includes a overblown guitar workout to keep metalheads happy.

 When I first played this I hated it. It sounded like a real mish-mash of styles and it sounded way too 90s (maybe that should be 00s now) for my personal tastes. After a few listens "Summer Street" and "Stability Song" sounded good and eventually the rest of the album started to appeal more. This isn't immediate and  in merging all the different sounds together, the 'hooks' have gone missing on some songs. The blurb that accompanied the album says that "the music is often compared to Supersuckers, Black Sabbath, The Who, Soundgarden, The Black Crowes meets Smashing Pumpkins, U2 goes grunge." Hell, I've never even heard of the "Supersuckers". To me blues rock means Rory Gallagher, Stevie Ray 
Vaughan, etc, but to a new generation it will maybe mean Chaotic Past.