Chimaira - The Impossibility of Reason (2003) Metal Album Review

 Everything comes together for Chimaira on this album. The juicy guitar tones, great riffs, pummeling drums and most especially Mark Hunter's excellent voice! He has one of the best growls in modern metal and I can't get enough of his vocals, so perfect for the music and much better than stereotypical "cookie monster" growls.

By May be found at the following website: http://www.preisvergleich.org/pimages/Chimaira-The-Impossibility-Of-Reason_280__80010016861839727_20.jpg, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7661337

"Cleansation" is a perfect example of everything modern thrash should be. Although considering this album is nineteen years old I'm not sure if it can be considered "modern" anymore. 

Andols Herrick shows off his killer drumming skills in the title track, opening with some sick double bass. Herrick is an underrated drummer, he's very talented. His drums are even more fantastic on their self-titled follow up album in 2005. 

"Pictures in the Gold Room" opens with one of the heaviest riffs on the album and is driven forward by Herrick's intense drumming. Hunter's screams are pure perfection. Every track is pure headbanging material. Yet towards the middle of the song they introduce softer singing that sounds like Linkin' Park or maybe Alice in Chains, but rather than ruin the song it actually enhances it making it even more powerful. In the mid-2000's the popular fad was switching between hard vocals and soft crooning. I wasn't a huge fan of it at the time but over the years it has grown on me, Chimaira does decent at it but Fear Factory is probably the best, also check out Opeth.

"Power Trip" is perhaps the thrashiest song on the album and one of my favorites. Lyrically it is about being against white supremacy, but it is written in a vague way that it could be against anyone abusing power in general. The guitar solos really shred, something Chimaira didn't do as much here. Also, the way Mark screams, "FUCK YOUR POWER TRIP!" is perfect.

"Down Again" starts off with a soft piano piece which is a nice reprieve after the intensity of the previous track. This song is good, don't get me wrong, but it is very mainstreamy-sounding, like something they'd play on the radio. One of my least favorite tracks, but again, not horrible or anything. You may like it.

"Pure Hatred" brings us back to headbanging thrash material. I really love the flanged outro to this song.

Brutally heavy with face-melting riffs and insane drumming, "The Dehumanizing Process" is one of the better tracks on the album. You can feel the hatred and anger oozing from the lyrics as Hunter screams, "Your time is up as I end it for you!", "I absolutely fucking hate you!", "In my dreams I will bury you!"

The song ends abruptly, the first time I heard it I thought the cd player had skipped. This brings us to "Crawl", not a great track. I dislike the vocal style on here but I applaud Mark for trying something different and this album certainly has variety. But this song I usually skip.

"Stigmurder" is another much-needed fast-paced thrasher. Chimaira are really in there element here. It has a nu-metally/grungy type of chorus that I don't think works as well here though. But it's still a kickass track.

"Eyes of a Criminal" is another stellar track. Not much to say here that hasn't been said before. Just another serving of great modern thrash metal.

"Overlooked" is one of their better songs, very fast and has an awesome breakdown toward the end followed by some beautiful harmonious singing that compliments that harder parts nicely. 

Clocking in at thirteen minutes and thirty seconds, "Implements of Destruction" is by far the longest track on the album, rivaling the length of Iron Maiden's epic, poetic masterpiece, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner."

It begins with a soft acoustic piece like so many classic thrash songs, (Beneath the Remains, Ripping Corpse, Damage Inc.) that begins to buffer, once again making one think their cd is skipping. (Does anyone still use cd's these days?)

Unfortunately the song is a major letdown and my least favorite. It's an instrumental (which I have nothing against, I love Orion and Dance of Eternity) but it's mostly lame. There are some cool parts, but the whole time you think it is building up to something really awesome and instead you just get 5 mins of lame Halloween noise sound effects at the end. A bad way to end an otherwise kickass album.

Bottom line: Get this album! Get their self-titled album along with it too!

Addendum: There's a bonus track for this album entitled, "Army of Me" which was featured in the horror movie Freddy vs. Jason (2003). I saw the movie when it came out and I really dug the soundtrack. This was my first introduction to Chimaira, though I didn't know that is was their song quite yet.

This song is one of Chimaira's best and I wish it was on the album proper, just pure ass-kicking heavy fucking metal. Check it out on youtube.

It switches between soft and harsh vocals but it does it with flawless perfection, much better than on the album. It has some excellent riffs too, Chimaira went all out on this song and it is a personal favorite.

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