Chelsea Grin - Desolation of Eden (2010)

For anyone who hasn't heard of Chelsea Grin, they are a 5 piece Grindcore/Deathcore band from Salt Lake City, Utah that formed in 2007. They consist of Alex (Vocals), Chris (Guitar), Mike (Guitar), Austin (Bass), and Andrew (Drums). They are currently signed to Statik Factory Records. And now for the review.

Chelsea Grin's first full-length "Desolation of Eden" consists of 11 tracks. The album starts off with "Judgement", "Desolation of Eden", "False Sense of Sanity", "Sonnet of the Wretched", "Cheyne Stokes", "The Human Condition", "Elysium", "Recreant", "Cast from Perfection", "Revenant", and "Wasteland". The album starts off with a brief roll of a crash cymbal only to have all the instruments kick in at once with almost a breakdown riff to start things off. This goes on for about 30-40 seconds and then a high pitched shriek comes in and makes it all fit together. As the track fades into the next track, you hear, what I can best describe as the drum intro to Ozzy Osbourne's "Over the Mountain" only played slower, but with more bass drum. Right after the quick drum solo, it changes up from the first track, and instead of a slow paced breakdown, it is filled with high speed guitar riffs and blast beats. The vocal stylings on the album only vary between three to four distinct tones that Alex (the singer) hits. There's the high pitched Suicide Silence type of scream, the low growl almost sounding like Whitechapel, the hardly distinguishible inhale vocals sounding similar to either Here Comes the Kraken or even Job for a Cowboy, and finally, the layered vocals, which just sound brutal as hell. I couldn't find anything I didn't like in the album, but was moderately surprised by the track "Elysium", mainly because it was an instrumental track. I wonder if this is starting to become a trend now a days with Death Metal in general (as the Annotations of an Autopsy album I reviewed earlier also had an instrumental track).

Overall, the album, as I described to a friend of mine, and I quote "it's like Suicide Silence, Whitechapel, and Job for a Cowboy had a baby, named it Steve, gave it a razor to play with, and it gave itself a glasgow smile, so brutal as fuck basically". Definitely pick this up if you're a fan of the aforementioned bands, The Black Dahlia Murder, or Deathcore in general. If you're looking to pick up the album, it was released on February 16, 2010, so it's out now on amazon and itunes.

Overall Rating: 4.1 out of 5

Buy the Album
Chelsea Grin's Website