Chevelle Helps You Hunt Down Nightmare Inducing Notes

Whether in real life or fictitious realms, the longer a nightmarish situation is, the less comfortable we are standing directly in its path. Illinois hard rockers Chevelle have reemerged with "Hunter Eats Hunter", a squeeze it out uneasiness missile that you don't want to be on the receiving end of whether you're under the covers or totally lucid. Hard rockers know that's the ultimate compliment. Chevelle pushes your buttons on numerous stomach lining corroding levels. Dean Bernardini lowers his bass deeper and deeper into your craw until you're sure not even the finest surgeon ever produced could extract it, neck and all. Pete Loeffler runs his fret consumed fingers down your back. The comparison between his choice of metal insanity and vengeful fingers cutting a wide swath down your back is a deserved one. You writhe in agony while he doesn't know anything else to do but ramp up your misgivings. So what's the plot point causing the night terrors that rob you of a fresh chance to face new daylight replenished? In layman's terms the story of that boogeyman who has come out of the shadows because the evening menace agrees with him. Pete's cast as narrator and much of his energy gets spent keeping this real life nightmare at bay. When he sings the unfiltered misgivings towards his odds for survival become increasingly obvious. The brave warrior in him proposes staying to fight while the yellow stripe down his back mandates that he make a break for it. Can you build a case for Pete's protagonist's character after the first verse? That's a discussion you can have with the man in the mirror. Doom fills the air like the moisture rich climates of a Dixieland night. Pete clearly senses the breaths he takes this night might be his last. What to do. How best to manage. Since the "little creep" proceeds to grab his arm I'd screeching would be perfectly understandable. We don't get a clear gist of what exactly has Pete quaking in his boots. Is his imagination enslaving him? Is it the faint outline of a persistent ghost? Whatever the true identity comes out to be, Chevelle draws out the agony for as long as its chords, drumsticks, and vocal modulations allow. Pete's found himself a mighty unenviable long hallway to stumble across. What other choice do we have but to assume roles as peeping toms in his downward jaunt through the backstreets of Hell. This opening effort off of "La Gargola" takes longer than usual to meander its way towards the title's claim to truthfulness, namely that the hunter eats the hunter. Fine time to be again consulting the parameters of the food chain. Pete could be someone else's entree if we deliberate for too long. "Hunter Eats Hunter" doesn't arm itself with the macho strut of other rock songs whose composers aspire to plant a flag on "epic masterpiece" territory. It prefers to play cute, sadistic parlor games with one soul's psyche. The cosmic scar tissue piles up bit by bit. Pete has to take a stand or be obliterated for good. Watching him negotiate the maze factors greatly into why "Hunter Eats Hunter" is a horror story whose pages you are compelled to flip time and again until you have, for better of worse, owned a substantial portion of Pete's nightmares. The hunt for hard rock that shocks first, answers questions never is over. Chevelle's campfire chaos deserves to be stuffed, mounted, and displayed as the bloodlust saturated loincloth that it makes itself out to be.