Wednesday 19 September 2012

CHOWDER - Passion Rift Review


Chowder are a Progressive Doom Metal Band from Maryland, USA

The members are:

Josh Hart - Guitar, Synthesizers, Mellotron, Theremin
Chad Rush - Drums, Percussion
Doug Williams - Bass, Taurus Pedals, cello

Chowder are a superb and quite rare Doom Metal Band. They are purely instrumental that blends Psych Rock, Prog Rock and Doom Metal to highly original effect.

Chowder have been around a long time. Since 1992 and they have finally got round into releasing their brilliant debut album – Passion Rift. An 8 song and 52 minute mind expanding Doom Metal trippy odyssey that pays homage to great bands past and present. Mainly Sabbath and Rush.

The talent behind Chowder is not in doubt as they feature Josh Hart from ace doomsters – Earthride. This is a band who have taken a very long time to release their longly awaited debut album.

Has it been worth the wait? Fuck Yeah. It has. This is an album I can’t praise highly enough. It’s an original slice of Doom Metal Brilliance that is very hard to ignore.

Passion Rift has been getting praise all over the place and it’s not hard to see why. It just flat out rocks from the start with the high amount of riffs it has up its sleeve.

Mysteriod and InnsmouthLook set the scene up for this very cool and spooky album that has a very cool Jazz/Experimental feel. It’s not Jazz Music per se just it has the progression of an experimental jazz song.

But back to Doom Metal territory. If you’re a fan of Rush then your going to love it as Chowder are very big Rush fans from the sounds of it. But do it in their own unique style.

Chowder is a band full of amazing musicians. All each playing their part in delivering a beautiful blast of Instrumental Doom Metal. It really is quite refreshing to hear a band trying to do something different and succeeding. And Chowder do this from the word go.

It’s brilliantly produced to show the band’s talents to perfection. Especially on the 18 minute plus title track – Passion Rift. All I can say about this track is – WOW and WOW. This track is what takes the album into classic realm territory. It starts with a cool Rush/Mastodon type riff but give it a minute or so before it explodes into a life of it’s own.

For this track just put your volume up full blast, Sit back and get ready for a wild ride that only Chowder can deliver. Other great tracks to check out are – Head Full Of Rats, Insidious and the sublime 11 minute epic – Custody

Look I can go on and on telling you how brilliant this album is. If you want more evidence just check the outstanding reviews all over the net. This is an album that is pushing all the right buttons and should confirm Chowder as one of best Instrumental Rock bands out there regardless of any genre.

This is a perfect introduction to this brilliant band and I urge you all to check them out now.

Amazing and Highly Recommended.

Passion Rift is available on I, VoidHanger Records and available from all good stockists now.

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