Review: Chevelle - Sci-Fi Crimes

Modern radio-friendly hard rock has earned a pretty bad name for itself in recent years.  The airwaves have been flooded with new, up-and-coming bands grappling for a piece of the pie, armed with frat-party-friendly lyrics and chunky, detuned guitar riffs plagiarized from their idols and contemporaries.  A lot of it really does suck horribly (I’m looking at you, Saving Abel), but amidst the dreck, there are a few bands that had a hand in establishing the sound all these also-rans are aping and that are still putting out material that rises above the trash to at least a passable level of listenability.  One of these bands is Chevelle, and their fall 2009 release Sci-Fi Crimes, while not quite Album Of The Decade material, is quite enjoyable anyway, especially when compared to its competition.

Chevelle have been fairly consistent in output throughout their career, with each album taking a modest step in a different direction from the previous one.  Added up over almost a decade, though, this means that the band has come a long way.  Today’s Chevelle is, on average, quite a bit more up-tempo and energetic than the plodding, moody alt-metal that made them famous in the first half of the ‘00s.  Sci-Fi Crimes definitely continues this trend, started in earnest on their previous full-length, Vena Sera.  One of the other things that sets this album apart from what came before it, paradoxically, is that it really isn’t all that heavy.  Sure, there’s a good amount of super-low-end riffing, but it’s used a bit more sparingly this time around, interspersed with a wider variety of guitar tones, lyrical vibes, and general changes in mood and dynamic.  Opener “Sleep Apnea,” “Jars,” and “Roswell’s Spell” are classic Chevelle, not completely terrible by any means but bordering on the upper end of average.  However, tracks like these coexist with surprisingly subdued songs like “Shameful Metaphors” and the entirely acoustic “Highland’s Apparition.”  These two tracks, along with the driving “Letter From A Thief,” showcase some of Pete Loeffler’s best vocal work and most memorable melodies to date.  The album does drag a bit towards the end, however; a few tracks seem tacked on as filler, and the unnecessary and unimpressive instrumental “Interlewd” adds a couple minutes of running time that the album really didn’t need.  Sci-Fi Crimes is a spotty, inconsistent album, but the best material on here is really very good, and for a band currently in the modern rock scene, that’s praise to be cherished.

Rating:  3/5

Standout Tracks:
“Letter From A Thief”
“Shameful Metaphors”
“Highland’s Apparition”

Release Date:  August 31, 2009