Chemtrail

By: John Pfeiffer

Chemtrail - Terminals

Creativity will always be a roll of the dice. No matter what you turn to, you have to believe that you roll the right way, or it will never work. And that is what Chemtrail has figured out. The band’s 2007 CD, Via Satellite, garnered much interest both here and abroad, winning them several raised eyebrows from journalists as far away as the UK and Italy and clinching them the Top Avant Garde slot in the coveted Asbury Music Awards of 2007. Chemtrail delves deeply into the instrumental vein, a genre I find both fearless and extremely welcome to our world of lame pop laziness.

Their newest CD is entitled Terminals and features nine colorful instrumentals. Highlights on this offering are disc opener, “Arrival,” a great intro piece utilizing clean and glistening toned guitar and piano structures all segueing into “Transamerica.” Bell clear, deep and rich instrumental alterations and driven guitars take this from a sheer whisper to blitzkriegs of overdriven oblivion and the inevitable end.

“Artifact” is another gem bursting with clear analog bliss, kicking heavy drums and bass, spiraled up and into chimey reverb drenched guitar lines complete with squalls of distortion, intertwined with chorus rich piano lines with vocal like communication.

The crunching thick smack of “Bloodbath” showcases well-toned
and feedbacked guitars, complex drum skills, and rumbling bass all perfect in timing and in the vibe of early Sonic Youth. I liked “Up For A
Downer”—once again the tone these guys get is incredible. Study this disc before you go record guitar parts. Oh, and having Joey DeMaio behind the console wont hurt you either. “Up For A Downer” moves within a slow motion soundscape, giving plenty of dynamic and space for everything to breath. Moody and melancholy, it takes you to disc closer, “Departure.”

I think one of the major strong points of this band is the way they communicate superbly without being typically vocal, using their instruments to tell you what you need to know, and I dig the arrival and departure theme.

The new album is entitled Terminals and is available online at iTunes. You can also join me to see the band live on Dec. 9 at the Saint and see what I mean in person. Don’t worry, you won’t need to tell me anything, I’ll be able to see the look on your face. - The Aquarian (NJ based music publication)

Since the great success of bands like the Icelandic band Sigur Ros, there has been a surge in music followers new to the scene digging through the Post Rock crates of record shops looking for soundalikes. If you are one of these people, try stopping by American group Chemtrail's page.

Having more in common with Explosions in the Sky than Sigur Ros, these guys specialize in creating elegant guitar riffs, combining them with simplistic beats and elaborating on them throughout their tracks using heavy distortion (and lots of volume).

A prime example of this can be seen in their track, 35,000 feet. Opening with atmospheric washes of distorted guitar and a gentle plucked melody, this track builds into a glorious uplifting epic full of crashing drums and soaring guitar solos.

The track Face Me is a more raucous affair, starting with raging guitars and furious drumming akin to Mogwai's recent rafter-shaker 'Glasgow Megasnake'. Just when you think this ones mellowing out, it shifts up a gear into a distorted sonic fury, before returning to its original theme for the coda.

Chemtrail's music is packed full of passionate warmth and poise. People looking for your next step into the world of post rock, you might just have found it.
- Manacast Reviews U.K.

Chemtrail is an all-instrumental rock group. But it's not a jam band.

The Asbury Park-based quintet's songs are tightly structured and carefully textured and each has its own dramatic flow.

"A lot of instrumental bands will be pretty self-indulgent, and ramble on for a long time," says guitarist-keyboardist Mike Burke, 28. "We keep the songs for four and a half minutes, mostly. Normal song length."

The band -- which released its second album, "Terminals," in November, and performs at the Saint in Asbury Park on Friday -- came together in 2006. Burke and guitarist Dan Ridenour, childhood friends from Ocean Township, had been playing music together before then, under the same name.

"I had always been writing and recording at home, and I'm a terrible singer," says Ridenour, 27. "So everything I was writing was in an instrumental format already. Then as I got older, I realized, hey, there is a music scene for instrumental music, so I'll be all right."

Ridenour says he and Burke liked the same kinds of groups: bands like Mogwai, who don't sing, and Sigur Ros, whose singer limits himself to nonsense syllables.

"When we were starting this, everyone thought we'd eventually get a singer or something," Burke says. "But we're like, 'No, no.' We were really into being an instrumental band. That was the idea from the beginning.

"We've just always been attracted to that kind of stuff -- emotion-based music, no lyrical message, just creating an atmosphere, a soundscape of some kind. That's what we wanted to do, an almost soundtracky kind of thing."

There is a dark, mysterious vibe to many of the band's songs, which makes the ominous Chemtrail name an inspired choice. The word is used by conspiracy theorists to refer to trails left in the sky by some airplanes. The trails, the theory goes, aren't made of condensed water vapor, but of chemical substances, released for some nefarious purpose. ("You and me hit by a touch of white evil/Watching the jet planes go by," Beck sings in his 2008 song, "Chemtrails.")

Burke and Ridenour both say the name choice is not meant to express support for the theory. The word just seemed to fit. It's obscure enough that many people won't know what it means, anyway.

In concert, the band -- which also features Chris Camano on guitar, J. Maggio on bass and Chris Lukens on drums -- sticks close to the way the songs sound on CD. The arrangements are complex enough that more improvisation would be impossible.

Burke says Lukens is the band member most likely to deviate from the script. "He plays within the structure, but he does changes things up," Burke says. "It's nothing too drastic. You might not even notice unless you really knew our CDs. But he likes to do things a bit different all the time."

Chemtrail won an Asbury Music Award -- voted on by musicians, club owners and other members of the scene -- in 2007. It was in the avant-garde category.

It's a stretch, though, to call this music avant-garde.

"I think they didn't know where to put us," Ridenour says. "Avant-garde, to me, is banging on pots and pans and having five minutes of silence. We're just a rock band, really." - The Star-Ledger

4/5 Stars-

(Translated from Italian)
American group Chemtrail could be another anonymous band adding to the endless army of clones that populate the post-rock universe. Having Mogwai and Explosions In The Sky among their major influences, the five-piece elegantly eludes a purely imitative approach, traveling instead on a parallel but unique path. The ten tracks highlight a direct songwriting ability that displays an emphasis on the trio of guitars that are always the center of the sonic plots and distorted explosions. We are looking at a post-rock work of an emotive matrix, the loud-quiet-loud one, the one able to warm the listener's heart up as a result of the shivering musical evolutions ("Face Me") and continuously mutating melodies ("To Fly A Car"). A very detailed delivery, an album to chase for all those ones out there who are irrationally in love with a genre considered already dead too many times.

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http://www.kronic.it/artGet.aspx\?cID=34522
- Kronic Magazine (Italy)