Poor man's metal
The last couple of British metal bands I've had the privilege to review, Forever Never and Interlock, have given me hope and belief in the future of British metal. Sadly, Oxfordshire's Chokehold has let the Brit side down badly with their debut full-length release 'The killing has begun'.
With a sound and a writing style that is reminiscent of turn of the nineties thrash, the band, musically speaking, aren't that far away from acts such as Sacred Reich, Xentrix and early Testament. Because they've adopted such a solid and established genre to base their music upon, there are some noteworthy ideas on this album. 'Shadow of Eagles' and 'Stay True' contain some foot-tapping thrash but unfortunately this isn't enough to stop this album from being dragged under.
Skipping quickly past the pointless introduction 'Dreams of one,' there are three key areas which make 'The killing has begun' a poor album. The first is the production, and if I were a member of Chokehold I'd be asking for my money back. Produced by named producer Nick Hemingway (Cancer, Blind to, Fony), every note and drum beat on this album sounds bad. The guitars try hard to be crunchy but their tone is too weak. Couple this problem with them being criminally low in the mix, and you have an album that fails to deliver even on its better ideas. The drums are far too loud completely taking over the mix on a regular basis. Because Lawrence's drum lines are quite technical and busy, at several times on this album there's nothing else to be heard. 'Faith of Fear' suffers from this problem, his fast double bass attack is impressive but means very little because the other instruments have disappeared. The vocals, like the drums, are much too loud and have a hideous and cheap reverb setting on them. When the vocals and the drums are going ten to the dozen, the rest of the band, for all that can be heard, could very well have stopped playing.
Secondly the vocals as well as being far too loud are just plain rubbish. Graham seems to be trying too hard to fit in with this type of music. His gruff vocals appear forced and unnatural as well as having little melody to them. After a couple of tracks his monotone growling gets extremely irritating and monotonous, and you wish that once or twice he try something different.
My third point is about performance, at times on 'The Killing has Begun' there appear to be a few mistakes creeping in, most notably in the rhythm section. The break after 2:30 on 'Faith or Fear' occasionally goes out of time causing the riff to sound jumbled. I'm not sure if this is intentional or a genuine mistake but either way it sounds amateurish. The drum fills in the dreary 'Fallen' are messy and out of time suggesting Lawrence has difficulty drumming at a slower pace. The start of 'Am I?' is another timing issue which begs the question, why did this performance make the final press? The guitar work on the whole is pretty solid but the solos aren't the strongest of assets on this CD. On 'Mocking Liberty' the solo doesn't really fit the mood of the song, in fact it sounds like it was cut and pasted from a different track altogether.
At it's heart, Chokehold sound like they could have potential, but they are marred by poor playing, dreadful production and lifeless vocals. Not even my blatant biasness towards their nationality will improve this album's score. There are a few decent riffs and ideas hidden underneath it all, and perhaps one day they'll get the production and performances they need to deliver this type of thrash effectively. Until this day however I would avoid this album and wait for the band to earn a bit more money to afford a good studio and a good producer. Disappointing.