VENA SERA - CHEVELLE
The Loeffler brothers’ fourth Chevelle album runs into a bit of a creative rut, with a few too many songs that sound the same. “Saferwaters” and “Straight Jacket Fashion” are the best of the bunch, with the trio’s well-timed guitar attack at full force. And though the influence of Maynard James Keenan is still present, Pete Loeffler sounds more like himself on tracks like “Midnight to Midnight.” The band is incapable of sounding small, a fact hammered home by Elvis Baskette’s production. What the material could use is more dynamic variety and not in the sense that every song needs the acoustic breakdown in the middle (”Paint the Seconds”) that afflicts so many major-label rock records today. Billboard
