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Chimaira > The Infection > Reviews
Chimaira - The Infection

Infectious grooves of misanthropic doom - 100%

Wacke, April 13th, 2016
Written based on this version: 2009, CD + DVD, Nuclear Blast (Limited edition, Digipak)

After Chimaira's 2007 effort Resurrection which saw the return of the band's former and fan-beloved drummer Andols Herrick, Chimaira followed up with The Infection in 2009 - the third album with the classic line-up, or second since the classic line-up reunited. This also marks their first (and ultimately only) album where the same line-up performs for a second time in a row. That is something that anticipated me a lot since Chimaira always brought in someone new for each of their records. This line-up was also the one that really crafted the band's trademark sound on the previous album as well as 2004's excellent "The Impossibility Of Reason", but Chimaira always brought new influences and stuff with new albums. This album is no exception - really the opposite actually.

All of Chimaira's previous albums always started like a shotgun blow, with songs like "Cleansation" or "Resurrection" which were straight forward kick-ass anthems. This time around they take a different route, though. "The Venom Inside" starts the album with a melodic calm-before-the-storm intro that kicks into an epic passage before the band's trademark groove sets off once more. The next few tracks pound on in a similar kind of way, sounding a lot slower and heavy-oriented than most of the band's previous work, yet retaining the same anger as before. "Secrets Of The Dead" kind of marks the huge debut for Chris Spicuzza's electronic effects on this album. It's very dark, eerie and misanthropic-sounding, like the dead collecting souls from all the living humans in the world. This is a turn that will prevail on most of the album's remaining tracks. The awesome riff-fest in "Try To Survive" are beautifully accompanied with a lot of electronics, way more than on any previous album, and really adds a lot of atmosphere. "Impending Doom" also marks a huge musical change for the band, being almost ballad-esque and extremely melodic, atmospheric, cold, dark, and emotional.

The production duties were once more handled by the band's long-time producer and unofficial seventh member Ben Schigel. He really knows his way around the band's sound and style just as well as themselves. Like always, he manages to make the band sound very heavy, pounding, clear and still raw. His increase of volume for the electronics department on this album is especially good. The band themselves also put on a great performance throughout the record, actually sounding a lot like a long-time band collaboration where everyone knows his place and available space. Lead guitarist Rob Arnold really shines as usual, but the most bright-shining member is indeed Chris Spicuzza. I can't seriously understand why they didn't let him be more present in their music before, because he makes half of this album what it is.

There really is nothing I could possibly complain about inside this album. The band once again grow musically and delivers their slowest, most doom-like record of their career, and it's also very atmospheric and beautifully crafted throughout its run. Even the bonus tracks are just as good as the standard album tracks, not to mention the professionally made DVD that comes along with a documentary about the album's making. Compared to their previous records, this one has not only got a lot slower-oriented sound, but it's also a lot more dark and eerie. It sounds very misanthropic.

At the end I this to be my favorite Chimaira album. The only sad thing about it is that it would be the last album by the classic line-up. But on the other hand, they checked out on top of their game with it.

Bow down - 100%

Writhingchaos, March 24th, 2016

Honestly, before this album I found every album of Chimaira good but at the same time, lacking in lasting greatness overall, having just a handful of kickass songs with the rest of the album just lingering around the efforts of being merely decent. Like a lot of metal bands out there, Chimaira had both the songwriting talent and kickass chops but suffered from the problem of consistency. Well now I am supremely glad to say that they've left that trait of theirs in the dust and all you critics out there can kindly chock on it. This is Chimaira back in full fucking force and make no mistake, they will obliterate you and your senses.

One of the main traits about this album is that there is a sublime and perfect blend of the aggressively fast and slower groovy sections of Chimaira's music making the overall product much more varied and interesting to listen to as a result. This was not the case with their previous albums where most of the songs would either fall into one of the two brackets. On this album those variations (of both faster and groovy sections) exist within each of the songs themselves. If you were on the fence about these guys then this album will undoubtedly be the one you've been looking for to convert you into a full-blown fan. For all fans of groove "Coming Alive", "The Disappearing Sun", "Secrets Of The Dead" and "Impending Doom" will definitely rip you several new ones and "The Heart Of It All" is undoubtedly one of their best long songs with a sorrowful clean intro building up to the eventual explosion that is at 2:28 slowly but steadily leading into well-placed chugs leading back into a dissonant clean section edging its way into an epic melodeath fest before finally both the guitars blaze away in harmonious melodic beauty. The superb guitarwork is most certainly the shining highlight for me.

On this album Mark Hunter displays another aspect of his vocals besides those growls; dual scream/growls with some clean whispers in some of the songs really kicking up the aggressive and dread factor of the music by a country mile. One a sidenote, I honestly think he's quite the underrated vocalist and people seem to give him less credit than he actually deserves. Otherwise the songs simply rip you to shreds leaving you disoriented but eager for the next attack along with spasmodic headbanging fits to boot. Listen to all the songs over and over again till your veins burst with seething rage causing you to destroy everything within a 500 metre radius. That's the only way it's done folks. Remember that.

If you claim to be a fan of metal in general, (which you have to be, otherwise why the fuck are you on this site in the first place?) and have yet to hear this album, you need to fix that and get this masterpiece without further ado. Period. As for me, I need to fix my broken neck now.

Still worthy, but a slight step down - 70%

MikeyC, December 22nd, 2014
Written based on this version: 2009, CD + DVD, Nuclear Blast (Limited edition, Digipak)

Chimaira have made a name for themselves, especially after their second album Pass Out of Existence. I always compared these guys to Lamb of God – another metalcore band producing their version of groove, however I constantly gave Chimaira the edge, since their brand feels more meaningful and I tend to prefer their compositions. Now that this band has split, I can look back on their discography knowing that most of what they did was pretty damn good, and I still believe they’re one of the better metalcore acts around.

Fifth full-length The Infection shows pretty much more of the same sort of groove/metalcore Chimaira can do. It would’ve been a pretty decent feat for them to come up with something that would be better than their previous two outings of Chimaira and Resurrection - their best albums, in my opinion, despite the problems the band had immediately after the self-titled. Naturally, while this one is good and still a worthy release under the Chimaira moniker, it doesn’t quite stack up.

Why? Well, for one, the production is a little weak in comparison. Everything is clear as it’s always been, but the punch has been omitted this time around. Not sure why, but everything sounds…drier, for lack of a better term. A little more fire in the mastering belly would’ve not gone astray. Apart from that, the songs are a little slower with a further emphasis on groove, so songs like “Needles” from the previous album are not evident here. The thrash leanings they utilised last time are almost non-existent here. It does pop up occasionally here, like midway through “The Disappearing Sun,” but overall there’s a higher proportion of groove and slower, plodding moments here.

You may be mistaken in thinking that The Infection is worthless, but that’s certainly not the case. Opener “The Venom Inside” is quite ballsy, especially during the chorus which is a more rapid tempo than the verses. Aforementioned “The Disappearing Sun” has that thrashy section in the middle before ending with a pretty nice groove riff to segue into “Impending Doom,” one of Chimaira’s more melodic outings. “On Broken Glass” has a catchy chorus, which I enjoy occasionally singing along to. The long instrumental “The Heart of it All,” something they have done before, is also quite nice. I prefer “Implements of Destruction,” a similar instrumental closer found on The Impossibility of Reason, since this one is more overtly melodic in delivery, but I find this one to be a fairer end. The bonus track “Warpath,” while good, was oddly placed, unfortunately.

Instrumentally, they’re as proficient as they’ve always been. If you’ve heard any previous or following albums, expect more of the same from these musicians. Guitars can still riff and solo quite nicely – the solo in “Coming Alive” is a personal favourite. Drumming is tight and concise, knowing when to restrain and when to unleash a little more. However, what makes this Chimaira are the vocals from Mark Hunter. His harsh yells are quite poignant, and this time around he uses more cleans scattered throughout (which would be used more again in The Age of Hell). I like his vocals, and they fit the metalcore route they take, and I’m glad he was one of the consistent members to last from start to finish. Lyrically, the band is still stuck in the negative-based, angry, misanthropic stage, which I’m indifferent to. Again, it fits their mold, however there’s only so pissed off one person can get. Thankfully they’re easy enough to ignore.

The Infection, despite some of its obstacles, is good enough to be a part of the Chimaira discography. Miles better than the disappointing The Age of Hell, but doesn’t usurp the throne populated with Chimaira and Resurrection. Those would be the best places to start with this band for the uninitiated, but The Infection is indeed worthy of a purchase if available.

They surpassed my expectations, and rightfully so - 88%

Elfwithfire, January 27th, 2010

You can almost guarantee that The Infection would be a different sound to that of it's predecessor, Resurrection. If you made this assumption, you would be obliged to like, or even love, the new sound of Chimaira. Fortunately, I love The Infection, it's a step forward from Resurrection, it brings a new balance of spine tingling riffs, deep harmonic growls and overall (in my opinion) blindingly quick drumming. Each track shows why it made the final cut; however each contains a 'feeling' that it's better than the other. Look more deeply in each band members contributions and you'll see why.

Mark Hunter shows why he's the lead singer. He is the main focus when anyone listens to the songs, he's the one you hear. So he has to be good. And he is. I recently saw Chimaira live the other week (which is why I chose to write this review so late, so I could get a change to see them live), and I wasn't disappointed. Mark exceeded my expectations, and showed me why I love Chimaira so much. I'm sometimes disappointed by his singing on certain tracks (see "Cleansation" from The Impossibility of Reason), but his vocal's on The Infection were so raw, so dark, so powerful. From his deep death-influenced growls (see "Broken Glass", "Coming Alive") to his higher pitch screams (see "Destroy and Dominate", "The Disappearing Sun") he has the ability to aim into your soul. Vocally, an improvement from Resurrection.

Jim LaMarca plays bass, really? Honestly, LaMarca doesn't show up much on The Infection, but when he does, be sure to be impressed; because I wasn't. His bass work is no shining light to an otherwise stylish guitar work. There was nothing there that did it for me. LaMarca, I'm sure, is a gifted bass player; but he doesn't reach his potential, similar criteria for Slipknot's Joey Jordison; gifted player, no execution. LaMarca can show his stuff live for sure, but at the end, we only remember studio versions. Bass - no improvement, it was never really there.

Matt DeVries has got to be the most unlucky guitarist in metal. He has to live to the solo standards of Rob Arnold. Some off the riffs these guys churn out... brilliant. It rivals some of the most outstanding riff-metal bands there are (see "Skeletonwitch", "Scar Symmetry", "Lamb of God"), no pair mold better than DeVries and Arnold, have DeVries' grunge-style riffs overshadowed by the advanced and powerful solo's that Arnold can put together. Seriously, these guys are good. Some of their solo's are amazing (see "the whole album"), each song has the overpowering riffs comprised with almost always a solo (or at least a mini solo). Even without a solo, DeVries and Arnold smash together a kick-ass verse or chorus riff (see "Coming Alive", "The Venom Inside"). Guitars are there for the taking. Fucking enjoy it. It's the best.

Then we've got my favorite, Mr Andols Herrick (I'm a drummer, that's why). And oh, he is good. Good doesn't come close though to his drumming on The Infection however, take away another 'o' and you'd be close. His drumming is that of a master, brilliant execution, and some speedy and melodic double bass. He is so better suited to Chimaira than Kevin Talley (who, by the way, kicks ass with Daath), and he shows again with his montage of speed, madness and control in The Infection. Some of the slower songs he really looks (or sounds, rather) comfortable and in control. He even has time to do tricky work (see towards the end of "Impending Doom"). Drumming is alive and well in The Infection, not as much as Resurrection, but it's still facebreakingly good.

Spicuzza, and how do you spell that again? He's the electronics dude, right? What makes him so different to a chippy old fellow from, say, Linkin Park? I'll tell you. 1 word. Chimaira. He's better because he's in a band called Chimaira. And they kick ass. He's got some techno stuff going on in the song, but that's not why I like him. I like him because he also sings. And very well might I add. Melodic vocals come in handy after you've had Hunter growling in you ear for the whole song. Have you ever seen blood in the moon light? Spicuzza sings softly in "Impending Doom". No I haven't, but it has happened. And Chris (that's his first name by the way), keep singing those melodics, it adds a certain defiant element to a otherwise diverse and beautiful album. Back to the days of The Impossibility of Reason where Chris' lyrics were more of. Electronic/keyboard - meh. Backing vocals - Fuck yeah!!

I love The Infection. It has everything you want in a metal album. It's a change from Resurrection or even distancing further from Chimaira. But we like change. And this is a good one. I will guess the next album is even more darker and eviler than this. Because if it is, it would be the best yet. But the best now, is Resurrection. Sorry to mislead you, but Resurrection is still the best. If you want to know why, check it out. If not, love The Infection, because it still comes in a close second. It's Infectious. It surpassed my expectations, and rightfully so. It's a brilliant album.

A massive step up, most impressive - 93%

Bloodstone, December 6th, 2009

Up until and including 2007's Resurrection, Chimaira's output to me represents unrealized potential. Excellent riffs, leads and songwriting chops are plentiful, but scattershot; they fail to come together and create truly great songs most of the time, which hurts the amount of enjoyment one is able to extract from the good parts in and by themselves, dependent on context as songwriting tends to be. Despite having the aesthetic and presentation of modern, mainstream-ish American groove metal (if that's considered a legitimate sub-genre), Chimaira has a highly varied sound that draws influence from many places, and overall, it's been just a few too many influences for their own good. One may think that the problem I'm describing is one of lacking coherence, the thing Opeth are often criticized for, but it's not. Chimaira's songs are in fact well-written, have a good sense of flow and are genuinely pleasant to listen to, which is impressive considering their obvious diversity. No, the problem is more of a feeling of hesitation; despite their ever-present aggression, the band sounds a little held back as if making diversity a priority over just letting the songs come out naturally. The songs just don't come off nearly as good as they should, given the abundance of good ideas and excellent musicianship involved. It's damn frustrating.

However, The Infection is where everything falls into place. Focus is the one factor to which I would credit most of its superiority over past Chimaira albums; it's less all over the map and more firmly entrenched in groove metal, and this here is a clear cut case of "less is more". Having less riffs, shorter songs and less dabbling with different styles makes the band sound less hesitant, more uncompromising and gives them room to focus on their strengths and make the best with what they have, resulting in this being first Chimaira full-length that consists almost exclusively of excellent parts. The songwriting here is more challenging than before, despite being more scaled down, and the hooks are less obvious. This is because the songs are more intended for the listener to take in as full pieces, as opposed to just enjoying them for their individual riffs, choruses and so on. Although this album is in one way more focused on its groove metal base, it's also more "jumpy" than usual for the band and not as smoothly flowing: from time to time, for example a fast tremolo riff pops up, a blast beat is suddenly thrown in or a song stops dead in its tracks to give way for a clean interlude. It's better than it might sound from the description: it's tastefully done, doesn't make the songs stray off their path and serves to add flavor in a different and again more challenging way. Further revealing Chimaira's songwriting growth is what it does.

A few other stylistic changes are evident here as well, and the one that the album's detractors seem to get most hung up on is the album's lack of speed. Correspondingly, the thrash leanings of Resurrection are nowhere to be found, and what's more, The Infection relies on breakdowns much more than Chimaira's previous work. All of which has proved a disappointment for many. To this I respond: the slowness fits the more groove metal nature of the album, in the same way that slowness is fit for doom metal and speed is fit for thrash metal, so this criticism is just a matter of groove metal not falling in line with the listener's more thrash metal taste, not a matter of a bad choice of direction. As for the breakdowns, of which there's a fuckton: while Chimaira are certainly good at writing breakdowns, I agree with the common notion that the riffage is more repetitive and monotonous than usual. However, as I said earlier, this album achieves more by virtue of its songs taken as whole than it does through its individual parts (such as riffs). And most importantly, it doesn't get in the way of one crucial aspect of the album's success, that isn't given nearly enough attention in any reviews I've read of it: its dark, cold, bleak and utterly oppressive atmosphere. It's heavier, tougher and angrier than any Chimaira album to date, and carries a strong vibe of despair and hopelessness as well. In addition, though the lyrics don't seem to deal with it, the album evokes a futuristic dystopian setting that recalls both latter day Meshuggah and Fear Factory's Demanufacture, in part due to the highly robotic, somewhat industrial production reminiscent of those two bands. In the field of sounding heavy and ominous, the atmosphere does a lot to make this a resounding success.

More evidence of the progress Chimaira has made here is how "complete" this album feels as single entity. Similar to how great songs are usually written in a way that makes them greater than the sum of its parts, The Infection as whole equals to more than the individual strength of each song, due to its brilliant pacing. Despite not being a concept album, it's presented like an extremely well-told story and because of this, I tend not to play individual songs from this one much. Additionally, it clocks in at a comfortable 50 minutes (discounting the last five minutes, which is just silence - what's the point?!), which is another advantage it has over Chimaira's past full-lengths, all of which are around an hour in length and feel padded out. One final point of improvement that I'd like to mention are the vocals, as Mark Hunter keeps getting less whiny with every album and now possesses a positively vicious and commanding tone. He growls more than ever here too, which goes well with Chimaira's music now being more on the extreme side. Lyrically, there's still some cheese here and there, but lines on the level of "I hate everyone" or "how great it would be to end it all" are now thankfully a thing of the past. It's an overall solid lyrical job that deals with inner struggles, the album's title and cover art being a metaphor for being "infected" with too much negativity. Oh, and on a quick note the drums are awesome, as with all Chimaira but the s/t. Not excessively fill-happy, but with a dead-on feel for the music. Hail Andy Herrick!

Not many reviews I've read share my view of this one, and thus I've played Chimaira's previous stuff a lot lately to see if there was something I was missing all along. But still, the improvements made here remain to me as clear as they were from the first listen. Their old albums are still pretty good in their own right, but The Infection marks the point where Chimaira have truly found themselves. Heavier, more focused and sounding more comfortable with their style than ever, the sextet from Cleveland has converted yet another one. Metal surprise of the year.

Well this is...different - 67%

DaddyZeus67, July 31st, 2009

First off I am a fan of this band. Apart from their obviously lame nu metal debut Chimaira has always been a really good band to me and they've always stood out from other groove metal or metalcore stuff. Resurrection is by far my favorite...but this new record entitled The Infection was a bit of mystery. When I first heard it I was really disappointed because it wasn't even nearly as good as The Impossibility of Reason, the self-titled album and Resurrection had been. The Infection is obviously slower and emphasizes more on heavy breakdown riffs and -core elements and it all sounded really repetitive and boring to me. There was hardly any of those faster and catchier thrashy riffs they used to do or very much variety in general either. I did actually like the song Impending Doom because it was the only track standing out by being actually different but the rest did nothing to me. So I listened to the whole thing again a bit later - nothing. With the third listen I came to the conclusion that the songs have some good parts in them but still none of them were fully good (besides the aforementioned).

But then I guess I was told that The Infection was actually meant to be like that...there was a real purpose for all of the songs being slower and more crushing and that purpose was to make it atmospheric. On Resurrection there was couple songs like Killing The Beast and Needle which were slower and heavier than the other ones and these tracks were dark and atmospheric as hell. And the concept of The Infection is basically to have a whole record of songs like that. Then I knew I should look at The Infection in that way...so upon hearing this entire 54-minute record 4 or 5 times overall I've now learned to appreciate it much more as what it is and now I'm pretty sure this review will be my final conclusion of the case.

First off Frozen In Time, Coming Alive and Impending Doom are fucking awesome songs. Frozen In Time has a good starting and things get absolutely amazing as the pre-chorus kicks in. The chorus itself is even better, you'll get that fucking awesome melodic riff with some background keyboards going among the catchy drum beat and then of course there's Mark Hunter's great rhythmic vocals on the top. Oh and the riff coming at 1:40 simply rules. Then Coming Alive features some mind-blowing atmosphere of guitar melodies in the verses and a damn good solo. The beginning is dark as hell and as the first verse begins you'll get Mark starting the verse right off with almost death metal-ish low growls before he would go back to his regular scream vocals. Impending Doom is the absolute highlight here, it has that mellow yet very dark beginning with industrial melodies and Mark's clean vocals and it then gets heavier with double tracked clean/harsh vocals from Mark Hunter and melodic guitar riffing in the background. Oh yeah and the riff kicking in somewhere around 3:30 is so fucking awesome that it would easily make for one of Chimaira's best riffs EVER. I only had to hear this riff once and it right away stuck deep in my head, never to leave.

The Venom Inside and The Disappearing Sun, these are both good songs as well. Not the greatest but worth listening to anyways since they both have their good and awesome parts. These songs admittedly have one or two mediocre riffs that I would have traded away but besides that there's not really any major problems with either song. The Venom Inside is pretty consistent all the way through and The Disappearing Sun starts picking up at 1:55 with a catchy metal riff, then gets even better at 2:23 with another amazing melodic riff (I only hope this part had been longer...). But I have to say there's some seriously terrible vocals at 3:03. I fucking guarantee you anytime I hear goddamn vocal distortion in a part when there's ONLY vocals I flip up. There's one only-vocals part in Coming Alive but without any distortion bullshit so why the fuck would they have to use it here? It serves absolutely no purpose for the song itself and knowing that Mark definitely doesn't need vocal distortion makes the matter even worse...but it's a good song nonetheless. Try To Survive is also a pretty damn cool song with that melodic chorus and the eerie sounding guitar lead in the end.

But what comes to the rest of the album...Secrets Of The Dead, On Broken Glass and Destroy And Dominate...well these songs are simply induced with mediocrity to the point when it's not worth listening anymore. Yes there's couple good parts on these songs but that's not enough to make up for the flat out mediocre sections and that's all I'm gonna say about these tracks. At the end we have a long instrumental The Heart Of It All. It's too much like that other instrumental they did, Implements Of Destruction, but The Heart of It All is anyway a very good listen and worth sitting through. It starts off with acoustic guitars, then the drums join and in couple minutes you have electric guitars playing too. There's good and memorable guitar melodies and leads with some heavy riffs too. Around the 6 minute mark there's another acoustic part but with electronic lead guitar on the top. Anyway another thing I'm still gonna point out is that NO it is NOT a 14-minute song. It fades out to silence around 9:37 and then what you get is nothing but fuzzy silence for over 5 minutes....so basically if you need a 5-minute break to relax after hearing this huge slow and dark monster of an album then this track is made perfectly for you.

So at the end of the day we have here a new and pretty good Chimaira album that sounds pretty much nothing like their past work (they have always featured something new and different with each of their albums) and proves that breakdowns can create more than just heavy mosh parts if you know how to use them. So as said about the guitars they focus very much on heavy parts and rhythmic chugging that's easy to headbang to and then there's occasional melodic stuff to expand the atmosphere and also some fast thrashy riffs (although much less than compared to their other work) to remind you that you're still listening to Chimaira. Besides the instrumental track there's only 5 solos on this record, 2 of them being roughly even 10 or 15 seconds long. So basically we have 3 real solos worth a shit and this is also one of the reasons I couldn't get into this record at first.

As for the drums there's really not much differences to what Chimaira drums have always been like. Good double bass usage in breakdown parts and all the way this dude gets the job done. There's couple blast beats in the album too, as far as I remember I heard them on Frozen In Time, The Disappearing Sun and On Broken Glass. Mark's vocals have changed on this album but they changed for better. His voice is now deeper, more powerful and more aggressive as a whole and he sounds less strained and more natural than before as well. There's clearly less clean vocals on The Infection, actually the only song I remember to have clean vocals in is Impending Doom.

So...this is one repetitive, monotonous and very long-winded album going on near to 55 minutes (near to 60 if you got one of those versions with a bonus track). But at the same time it has very dark and crushing feeling...it's fucking bloated with atmosphere, although this doesn't work very well all the time and as said before few of the songs are just dull. At the end of the day we have 6 good songs and a good instrumental. This is not by any means as good as Resurrection (or the 2 records before that) but it's still worth listening to and if you can find it cheap in a store, why not buy it? I did ;)

There is no God - 20%

TheMancubus, May 23rd, 2009

A central argument against monotheism is "the problem of evil." How could an all-loving and all-powerful god, allow for a creature like Satan to exist? If God was truly an all loving deity, then why doesn't he turn the world into a paradise? This album's existence is proof that if there is truly one all-powerful being, then he simply isn't on our side.

First off, this isn't groove metal, it's doomy hardcore. These riffs have a LOT more in common with Merauder and Hatebreed than they do with Gojira and Pantera. Any fans of White Zombie and Meshuggah who want to check this album out due to the groove tag should steer clear. Most of the riffs are just hardcore chugging that would pass for a breakdown if they were playing at a higher tempo. The difference between the riffs and breakdowns on this album is just that the breakdowns sound like they were being played by Sunn O))). The solos actually good but they're really the light within this very dark, dark place like a jester in a war zone.

Regarding vocals and lyrics, Mark Hunter has never had a good voice. In fact, he utterly sucks. As in, this guy has never been good and alternates between tolerable and completely awful. I remember that Johann Liiva was fired from Arch Enemy for sucking and Chimaira should do the same with Mark. He makes this entire shitfest album that much harder to swallow. He reached his lyrical high point on the self-titled album, he's now singing about how, "The sky is falling." Good job, Chicken Little, now shut the fuck up.

Granted, Chimaira has never made the same album twice. Their first album was nu-metal, their second was metalcore, their third actually had a unique and hard to categorize sound that I'm surprised they didn't stick with, and Resurrection was a thrash album that had a lot of potential but failed to live up to what it could have been. So I give them props for trying something new, but this is totally a failed experiment and these guys should seriously revisit the sound of their third album. Now it being said that they have never made the same album twice, that doesn't mean that they have never made the same song twice. In fact, every song on here sounds the same with three exceptions: those being the faster tempo of Try to Survive, the cool atmosphere in Impending Doom, and the sweet instrumental goodness of The Heart of it All. That still leaves seven songs songs full of unimaginative chugging that goes nowhere. This whole album have been much more enjoyable if it were a three song EP that kept the good tracks but got rid of the filler that makes up the majority of this album.

This album is seriously horrible and incredibly boring. While there haven't been a lot of good big name releases so far in 2009, the few great ones by Mastodon, Napalm Death, God Dethroned, Susperia, Cannibal Corpse and Lamb of God put this album to shame. If you already have most of those, then please wait for the new Atheist and Anaal Nathrakh. Your wallet and ears will thank you.

The Infection is infectious - 90%

Trilogique, April 21st, 2009

I'm not a big Chimaira fan as I find their previous efforts were bland and I was indifferent to this album before I heard it, thinking it would be another boring metalcore album, but The Infection kicked my ass and proved me wrong. While hating their previous records, I respected their ability to evolve and this evolution is pushed to the limits with this album.

The Infection sounds almost nothing like their previous efforts. The album has a lot more groove to it, but with this groove comes -core style riffing and song structures, along with something every band tries to do nowadays: breakdowns. Fortunately, Chimaira's breakdowns are much more interesting than your run-of-the-mill breakdown. The reason being is the dark atmosphere of this album, which adds a whole new element to a dying genre (even one that was dead from the start, you could say).

The Infection, whilst being a spectacular album, isn't without fault. You can tell on a few tracks they tried too hard to add mathcore-esque transitions. "The Venom Inside" is a perfect example of this and there are a few others such as the intro to "Frozen In Time" and various parts of "The Disappearing Sun." Another thing that brings the score of this album to a 90 is the inconsistency. The album starts off great (even with the awkward transitions) and the songs are downright catchy with its groove-riffing and apocalyptic atmospheres, bass drops and perfect execution of guitar wankery. Unfortunately, the album falls into a pit of blandness when you hit "Impending Doom" and the track after. Both songs are very boring and uninspired. Thankfully, the album prevails and finishes with three amazing songs, namely the instrumental (which is much better than their previous instrumental).

Another minor pitfall is Mark Hunter's vocals. They're a somewhat abrasive mix of growling and screaming that sounds a little too forced at times. While he isn't the most original vocalist or the most creative lyricist, if you can see past the abhorrent language at times and even the emo lyric sections of the songs, you'll get kicked right in the face with the album's infectious music.

Despite its faults, The Infection is an amazing album. It is an album that will be remembered in Chimaira's career and could be considered their best effort if they are unable to top this. Pick this record up. It's catchy, heavy and extremely dark. The perfect combination.

Still progressing: heavier, but gets boring - 60%

Tymell, April 21st, 2009

I like Chimaira. I've never been a massive fan, but what I do like is that they've always evolved. Always essentially "Chimaira", but every release has brought something new to the table. From the nu sound of the debut through the more straight up metalcore following that, then the injections of thrash elements in Resurrection, and now to this, The Infection, which is continuing this trend by not simply repeating the last album.

Instead, Chimaira opt for a slower, heavier and more death-influenced side of things, harsher and less accessible. Previous output could be compared to that Lamb of God style of groove/metalcore (groovecore, if you will). Now it's more along the lines of the latest Devildriver release, but utilising a swirling, pounding aggression rather than a wild, faster kind, and overall not a million miles from melodeath. They've not suddenly turned into Suffocation or Nile by any means. But the death metal elements that were always there (see "Paralyzed" from the previous album for an example) are brought more to the fore. We've got a thicker, heavier tone, and the vocalist sticks firmly to the harsh side of things throughout, even venturing into full on death growls at times (as in "Coming Alive" or "On Broken Glass"). Listen to the closing minutes of "Six" or "Killing the Beast" from Resurrection, then imagine that as the core sound of a whole album.

This basic sound is perfectly fine for me, and I much enjoyed it on the early tracks. But as I kept listening to it it just dragged. This isn't a problem with the general style they adopt, but rather the lack of variety. The whole album moves at basically the same pace, the guitars make much the same kind of noise throughout, and it's hard to actually distinguish much between songs. They've also abandoned the thrash elements from Resurrection, so don't come to it expecting that. It sticks firmly to a slow-mid range pace. However, it's not without some that can be called standouts, that make the most of this style. For me, those would be "The Disappearing Sun" (nice progression throughout the song, it kind of sums up the whole sound well), "On Broken Glass" (great chorus) and "The Venom Inside" (very metal opening which leads into the song well, and powerful & well-delivered lyrical content). The downside is that the rest of the songs are largely unnecessary.

The closing track, "The Heart of It All" is the only one to really break this all up, and this is hardly surprising: all other songs (save one 6 minuter) are between 3 and 5 minutes in length. This one is an epic 9 minuter. If nothing else, it's nice to have them experimenting like this (and I firmly enjoyed their last epic track, "Six" from Resurrection), but the question is do they pull it off, or does it feel unnecessarily forced and stretched out?

Well, truth be told it's more of the latter. It's not bad by any means. But a lot of it is still essentially the same stuff I'd already heard in the previous 9 songs. The more melodic sections were a welcome break, and they fit into the flow of the song and added to it just fine, but this is too little too late. This kind of variety throughout the album would've helped it a lot. It's also hampered by the lack of vocals: instrumentals are great, but as said it doesn't feel that different from the other songs, so the lack of vox comes out as odd. Also, while the melodic parts add variety, the subtraction of the vocals counters this, and it failed to hold my interest.

So, overall I don't enjoy it as much as I did Resurrection. On that album the variation and changes in pace within songs and the album itself kept it fresh. This variety in riffs/vocals/beat was used to create some great hooks, and The Infection loses this. If you don't like Chimaira, chances are this won't convert you, so look elsewhere. The same applies if you're looking for them to press on with the thrashier side of things. If however, you generally enjoy the band, or melodeath with some groove/core elements to it, then give it a try, but be warned that the album as a whole is repetitive and so it's a bit much to take in one sitting.