3 out of 5

Label: Epic

Produced by: GGGarth

My narrative with Chevelle: I was absolutely pumped at the release of this abum. It felt like centuries since the release of Point #1 (actually only three years), and during that time, I kept trying to push the album on people – yes! the group with the Tool sound and Tool-like video but the album is more consistent than any given Tool disc and why are you walking away – and also hoping that the band wouldn’t be a one-disc flash-in-the-pan. I was also a little chuffed at the seeming erasure of Point #1 from the group’s history, and I do understand their dissatisfaction with producer Steve Albini’s oversight of it, but, to be fair, though I’m a diehard fan at this point, I don’t know if I’d be that if not for the sound of that debut: it was, for my ears, the best possible balancing of those Tool and Deftones influences into one of the most meaty and powerful alt-rock discs of all time.

So: damn, they’d stuck it out to a sophomore release, and on a major label. I had my warning bells flashing – these were the years of rap-rock and alt-metal mainstream, and Wonder What’s Next producer GGGarth was familiar with that scene, and a quick playthrough of the disc undeniably confirmed they were playing to that scene… but it was still the Chevelle sound at its core. I found myself in a funny position of playing this thing all the time at the music store at which I worked, hoping to play my part in selling copies, but also sticking with my original suggestion of You Should Check Out Their Other Album!, because Wonder was just kind of okay to me, nailing hooks along the way, but middling and generic in many others.

And my diehard fan self still feels the same, decades on. This is the Chevelle disc I pretty much never return to. Pete’s lyrics had a kind of succinct poeticism and cynicism on Point that’s exchanged on this disc for pretty simple-minded masculine tunes of anger management and the like, though evidence of some deeper thoughts and emotions poke through. Musically, it’s a similar balance: the melodies, as mentioned, absolutely kick, but they’ve also been amped up to support a lot of yelling, and the interesting diversions Chevelle adds to the alt-metal formula are there, but bridged with generic sections that’ve been produced and mixed to absolutely clean, radio-friendly play.

When I listen to Wonder, it’s satisfying to hear the group establishing many core tenets of their sound, but just as Albini pushed that more in a direction suited to his skills, the band / maybe GGGarth / maybe the label and maybe a combo of all of that geared this towards the music zeitgeist of the time, and it took the next few albums to kind of “unlearn” that – finding the proper place for all the screaming; the proper balance of being more adventurous with compositions versus settling in for a beefy, catchy riff; and Pete getting comfortable exploring both his fitful and contemplative sides in the lyrics.

But I can also acknowledge that the bulk of this disc is memorable as all heck; I remember from those first listens that choruses just got stuck in my head, and I’ll go ahead and rank a track like Send the Pain Below – angst metal yelly breakdown bridge aside – as an all-time Chevelle track, which such exception statements indicative of how I feel about this whole album… and probably why the review is full of ’em.