Review Chrome Division - 3rd Round Knockout 2011

From the land without roads, west of where I live comes this band of Norwegian musicians with known musician Shagrath (vocalist of Dimmu Borgir) as the one who started it all back in 2004. To his help he has other musicians known from the norwegian metal scene. But it is not as you might suspect an all start black/death metal project, no it is classic raw rock’n’roll that these guys have decided to bring to the world with their collaboration.

It is musically not really that unexpected from what you can guesstimate when looking at the album cover. It is straight to the point, heavy and raw rock’n’roll, for those who fear the rock label I can point out that it is rather heavy so a metal label can be put on the band if one needs it for image reasons. It is simplistic song structures that does seem to mainly want to go straight to the point with powerful choruses and solos, it is dirty rock’n’roll that almost transport you to that small rock club with its filthy barstools and pee drenched toilets. The sex, drugs and rock’n’roll image seems to be very much implanted in the minds of the gentlemen of this band. They deliver a ten track, fortytwo minute energetic rock’n’roll album without compromises.

The album starts with introducing the bulldogs of the album cover in the opening track Bulldogs Unleashed which is a track that encompass more or less everything the band has to offer on this album, the raw vocals, the raw rock sound, the choruses and the guitar work, it is all there albeit a bit shortened from what the album as a whole has to offer. It is a good opening track but not really a real top notch track as a whole. The second track is more pathetic than anything else and I find it to be more embarrassing than it is good. it offers a quite good melody but I cannot shake how terribly pubertal and stupid the lyrics are and discard the song as the worst on the album, 7 G-strings it is called and I think you can guess what it is about.

Track four and five, Unholy Roller and Zombies & Monsteras are two real top tracks that show what this band is capable of with good catchy choruses and a lot of energy. In these tracks they show how well there rock’n’roll can work just as much as they in track two show how not well it works. Next track called Fight is also quite good and the same goes for track eight Long Distance Call Girl but it is one of those tracks where they act more like acne covered teenagers than real rockers as the lyrics in this song also is quite stupid. Track nine is a rather good Johnny Cash cover of the song Ghost Riders in the Sky which is better in original form but Chrome Division does a good job of creating an own version that works quite well. The last track is also musically quite good but again there is a warning label to be put on the lyrical side of it as the lyrics again are a bit childish.

I think that if they focused on making songs with less pathetic lyrics and decided to move a little bit away from making rock’n’roll in accordance with the rules of rock they might actually have something really good going for them. With that said, it is not like the band makes a bad record with this 3rd round knockout but there is something more in there and they really need to find their own identity to avoid disappearing in a genre that is filled with quite many bands.

It is actually in a way difficult to see who is going to buy this music, the old rocker fans will probably not since they already have enough heroes and would consider this being just copies of them. Maybe the extreme metal fans will be looking in this direction to broaden their horizon, it is after all a band of extreme metal musicians that show they are not as snowed in on one genre as some of their fans seem to be.

In the end I can say that 3rd Round Knockout by Chrome Division is a decent album, there is no denying that. The problem is just that they are walking down paths already walked a million times and they don’t really add something new so even if they do what they do well they will have a hard time to really make their music fins its way to the heart of the rock’n’rollers. I also think that the somewhat pathetic lyrical traces that can be found in some of the songs is a thing that does not work in the band’s favour. It is a rather good album even though it is a bit like deja vu.

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Chrome Division 3rd Round Knockout

Chrome Division
3rd Round Knockout