Review Summary: Metalcore’s southern gothic masterpiece.
In the 1999 Mike Judge comedy
Office Space there’s a generic restaurant, Chotchkie's, that forces its employees to don pieces of ‘flair.’ This flair that adorns Chotchkie's employees and the walls is an attempt by the company to hide the fact that it’s just another corporate franchise. They want you to think how ‘rustic’, ‘down home’, and ‘old timey’ the place is even though it’s all insincere. However Pete’s BBQ – ‘the best darn BBQ joint in East Texas!’ – is everything that Chotchkie’s pretends to be. It’s an old giant barn with a giant American flag hanging on the walls outside. Inside a giant Confederate flag hangs on the walls flanked by old license plates and dead animals. The BBQ’s only employee, Pete, is a large, hairy man who in 2001 either hung himself or moved to Florida (I can’t recall which) and now Pete’s BBQ is, during Octobe, a haunted house. Now depending on how you look at it The Chariot’s sophomore full-length
The Fiancée is either Chotchkie’s – in that it’s just a typical metalcore record dressed up in Southern things to hide its blandness – or it’s Pete’s –authentic and scary and pretty tasty too. I think Pete, if he’s still with us today, keeps
The Fiancée right between
Pronounced 'Lĕh-'nérd 'Skin-'nérd and
Wild-Eyed Southern Boys in his record collection.
Now conceptually
The Fiancée is all fire and brimstone; musically, lyrically, everything. Josh Scogin is the Angry God and we are the sinners hanging from silk above the hell. Scogin’s vocals draw a lot of comparisons to Sean Ingram of Coalesce, both spitting fury and bile from the pits of their stomach. Instrumentally The Chariot keeps it simple but competent; they know when to speed it up, slow it down, and lapse into bursts of feedback and distortion. Jake Ryan, the drummer, is the most skilled of the group, ripping out some neat fills and keeping the proceedings flying by at a quick pace, but still nothing really technical. So a pretty typical metalcore album until of course you get to the ‘flair.’
Now Pete’s and Chotchkie’s both had flair. Chotchkie’s was cheesy, boring, and way too safe. Pete’s flair all gave his eatery a unique and creepy atmosphere. Without that flair Pete’s is just another BBQ joint, but with it he has an establishment that will always be remembered by his customers. The Charot’s flar is again like Pete’s sincere, passionate, and real creepy. The Sacred Harp Gospel Choir’s appearance in “And Shot Each Other” is immaculate, and a downright sin just how well the two parties are able to pull off this strange collaboration. Halley Williams’s mournful vocals on “Then Came to Kill” and Aaron Weiss’ harmonica’ing on “Forgive Me Nashville” are also effective in tilting the band’s sound into odd directions.
The Chariot are also able to pull things off without outside help, Cogin’s brutal chastising of the ‘worker bees’ in “They Faced Each Other” or that super sweet breakdown towards the end of “The Deaf Policeman” for instance.
The Fiancée is a dirty and reckless trip across the Southland paying tributes to the big man upstairs, old murder ballads, Lucifer, Southern gospel, Skynyrd, Melvins, and Coalesce along the way. It’s a band expertly using little references and flair to make up what they may lack when it comes to talent and songwriting. Let me tell you Pete’s burger wasn’t the best, and his BBQ sauce wasn’t quite sweet enough but I’ll always remember that place, and I’ll always remember
The Fiancéeand not a thousand other similar and sometimes better albums. Also “how can I smile while the vampires sing?”
