If I were to complete my review here and now by telling you that Full Blown Chaos' newest album was a boring metallic hardcore album full of double bass drumming, growling vocals and breakdowns, what would you say? Would you perhaps say that I had just written a generic review?
I use the term hardcore rather loosely you see, because this is mostly metal, and not good metal, either -- extremely tired metal. The connections to hardcore are likely the archaic chivalrous notions of things like honour that permeate the NYHC scene that are found peppered liberally throughout the album. After repeated listens the album starts to bleed together and eek its way into the background; it becomes the sort of thing you might want to listen to while doing algebra homework. The only songs that break out of the monotonous churning of this album are the opener "Firefight" due to its faster than average tempo and the instrumental "Mojave Red Pt.1" with its clean guitars and drum pattern that actually changes things up.
If the band's name wasâ¦I don't knowâ¦.the Lolipops, I would expect their songs to be the sort of pop tunes I could hum along to while folding laundry. With a name like Full Blown Chaos and an album name like Heavy Lies the Crown it would be easy to expect something completely heavy and chaotic. Instead of that, this release is almost completely devoid of any surprises at all, much less chaos; rather, the band ends up sounding like a slightly revved up Hatebreed. Basically Full Blown Chaos' biggest advantage is that they aren't actually Hatebreed; next time they should take that and run with it. Until then I suggest you stick to algebra.