Choke Chain - Choke On This!
(Shell Shocked – 2024)
(Style: Sleaze Rock)
Let’s get straight to the point of this thundering powerhouse slab of gargantuan riff laden metal album. I really dislike the band’s name; it conjures up the wrong image and will close more doors than it opens in the long term. How about something a bit more subtle like ‘Chains Of Power’ or ‘Chain Of Thoughts’?
Anway after that gripe I gave it a listen and was impressed with the content, the punk fuelled anger, the angular axe attack, the venom in the vocals, the booming bass and the heavy doom drumming.
Song-title and lyric wise it takes you on a journey of judgement, where life does not always deliver as expected. ‘Ain’t Yo Bidness’ possesses enough power mixed within its rhythm of heavy rap to have wide appeal, to those of us who feel judged, it charges at the listener and contains the superb line, “Your daddy should of masturbated”!
The buzzsaw riff cuts through the neurons of the brain. More importantly the frustration in the delivery makes us all think of someone we would love to say this to.‘Liar’ is a perfect follow up, we have all been let down by the people that we are either close to or admire.
‘She Cries Alone’ is big surprise, slower and brooding, almost foreboding, the subject matter is the that of the victim who suffers in silence pretending that everything is all right. I can visualise shock horror legend Alice singing this, maybe her name is Gail. Then she says her final goodnight.
Choke On This! Is as brutal as life itself with extreme scorching energy. If it has a message, it clearly is sometimes you have to ‘Beg And Plead’, which may steal a riff from Metallica but who cares as it drives the song with power and purpose.
Julian Avila (Lead Vocals) Mikey Ravone (Guitars) Nikki Peril (Bass) and Phil Hernandez (Drums) have created a monstrous noise that is as savage as tornado that rips up the neighbourhood. There is no Fairy Tales on here, it simply deals with realities that we all endure, talk about my ‘Degeneration’! In a word, Immense!
By Paul Mace