Chinchilla
“The Last Millennium”
(Metal Blade)
My last encounter with Chinchilla didn’t go all too well. In fact, I wasn’t even able to keep their CD in one piece. It wasn’t like I shattered it into little digitally encoded shards of plastic intentionally; it just sort of fell to pieces on me after listening to it once like a Mission: Impossible audiotape. What I recall of that solitary listening experience was that I didn’t particularly care for this progressive metal act, their choral choruses, their steady double bass rumble and guitar showcasing. What I know now listening to their new album is that I still feel the same. It isn’t interesting, engaging or original. Now don’t start squawking too fast. I know that there’s nothing new under the sun, but come on man, people can at least try. The market is simply overly glutted with metal bands singing about war and demons and angels and such and if I’m going to listen to your metal band’s songs about war, demons, angels and such then you have to offer me something that I couldn’t necessarily get by tossing in any Maiden album or “The Spectre Within” by Fates’ Warning. If you’re a Thin Lizzy fan then this album might interest you insofar as you get to hear “The Boys Are Back in Town” thoroughly played to the teeth but nonetheless hopelessly stunk up.
