4 out of 5

Label: Epic

Producer: Brian Virtue

I don’t know if there’s a perfect Chevelle album.  Point #1 comes close except that it’s so immature lyrically and structurally to what would follow, and every one of their albums has at least some filler to get it to the 40 minute mark.  But Sci-Fi Crimes comes incredibly close, finding a balance between the more soaring balladry of their longer tracks and the dirty, low-end heavy sound of their rockers.  It’s certainly one of their best produced – Brian Virtue and the band get the right pitch for Pete’s vocals, for the guitar, for a nice warm and rounded bass, and allow the drums to ring into the foreground at the perfect level to equal pummeling but not overwhelming, to keep the momentum but not reduce the drum beat to ‘might as well be a machine’.

Having a theme might’ve helped.  Perhaps there’s a theme to every album, dunno.  And I can’t tell you exactly what the theme here is, but the track titles mostly revolve around something to the left of normal (‘Sleep Apnea,’ ‘Roswell’s Spell’) and the cover art give it all sort of a cheeky feel, nudging the band out of the angry alternative genre into an entity that was able to focus more on songwriting and less on yelling (I say this as a big fan of Vena Sera, which was probably their most vicious sounding album).  This aligns with the decision to record the album live (according to the wiki page).  It’s just a fresher sound than we’d heard on ‘This Type of Thinking’ or ‘Wonder What’s Next,’ and tips the album into the best ratio of great songs to okay songs.  In fact, every song on here is excellent, but the sequencing gets a little mashy toward the latter half, songs that stick out as singles blurring together.  This is despite sticking the expected acoustic track toward the middle of the album.

It’s still absolutely recognizable as Chevelle, but it’s also sort of a fan’s confirmation of how solid the group is.  Every preceding album felt like it was out to prove something – ‘Point’ being a debut album it’s a bit more innocent but still out to grab your ear, ‘Wonder’ was ditching the Toolism of ‘Point,’ ‘Thinking’ felt like a bid to stay relative despite success, and ‘Vena Sera’ was the rip-roaring reminder that the group can still shout and rock.  So, okay, points proven.  Now they can relax.  And lookit that, longtime Chevelle fans – when the band rests on its laurels, turns out their still a fucking great group.  Pete’s words have also sharpened up a bit, navigating his metaphors and concepts down a good line between cryptic and relatable.

Nothing changed, but everything got just a bit better.