Chugger - Human Plague - 2015

There is nothing more fun than exploring music you are completely unfamiliar with. Thanks to Rambo Music, I now have the chance to give you, my dear readers, my opinion on this album. Chugger is unknown to me. That is the best thing, when you don’t have to be colored by any preconceived notions or previous works to compare with. The hardest things to listen to and like are the bands where you have really loved an album and then compare everything that comes with that one album.

There are a few bands like that in my closet, but I won’t bring them up here and now. Chugger sounds brutal if you listen to the vocals. It is a growl at its most definite and it certainly suits the instrumentation well. In the press release, they are classified as melodic Death Metal Overall, they tend to overanalyze influences and sound with an almost obsessive ambition to categorize and classify. You have to group such music by itself and other music by itself by any means necessary. I do this as well so I’m not innocent enough to throw the first stone. I think it’s the critics above all actually. We are bad people.. 😉

The music is not as brutal as the press release makes it seem. As Death Metal it is surprisingly mild. Which, in my world, is only a positive thing. When there are bands that are so brutal and guttural that you can hardly distinguish a note, there are also bands like Chugger. There are clear riffs, and that is something that I appreciate. There is a lot of guitar and a lot of bass in the sound reproduction. That is, the bass instrument and not the frequency range. It is almost unbearable when you hear records where all the focus is on the darker registers.

I like what they have achieved here. It is a good mix of frequencies. The drums lie pleasantly in the background and work in good symbiosis with the bass. Exactly what you could wish for. I will readily admit that I don’t put much emphasis on the lyrics when it comes to this kind of music. The voice is allowed to act as an instrument quite simply. Of course, I get stuck on a few phrases or something, but generally I find it far too tiring to keep up with to care about it. At least this early in the listening process. When I’ve heard it a few more times, I might do so, but not before. Until then, the overall impression will be the one to make.

This is a translation of a review I did a few years ago.

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