Chelsea Grin – Self Inflicted

Alex Koehler, the vocalist of Chelsea Grin, has left the band to focus on his health (although he has a new side project called Grudges). His replacement is the vocalist of Lorna Shore, Tom Barber, who you can hear in Chelsea Grin’s new single “Dead Rose”.

Below is my ORIGINAL review from 2016 that I never posted; I’m leaving it unchanged as a tribute to Alex. I’ll save my thoughts about him leaving and being replaced by Tom for another time.

Chelsea Grin’s 4th album titled ‘Self Inflicted’ was a much stronger release than ‘Ashes To Ashes’. On both albums Chelsea Grin has been moving towards easier to understand screams, but Self Inflicted comes across a bit heavier which is great.

I don’t really think their last two albums are deathcore but ‘Self Inflicted’ is certainly a step up in terms of heaviness. Songs like Skin Deep, Four Horsemen, Broken Bonds, and Scratching and Screaming are definitely deathcore, but the others feel a tad too light (kind of like what Impending Doom has become, extra heavy metalcore).

Alex’s vocals have improved immensely over the last 2 years and he’s sounding the best he ever has. Back in 2012 his vocals were actually pretty bad but I’ve seen Chelsea Grin 3 times in the last 2 years and it’s mind blowing how much better he’s gotten.

I actually like that they’re returning to a more chuggy sound and with less technical guitars compared to when they had Jason Richardson in the band. Overall I think this is a super solid step for Chelsea Grin as they reclaim their deathcore roots but also experiment with songs like “Never Forever”, and “Say Goodbye”.

The only complaint I have is that occasionally the vocals become too predictable (like when the rhyme scheme stays AABB for too long with each sentence only having 4 or 5 words). It’s a small complaint but it sounds kind of cheesy when there’s one word per beat for extended amounts of time. Between the weak rhymes and predictable verse structure some of the sections just sound a little too uniform.

Other than that, I’m super into this album and it’s pretty cool how they’ve wandered back towards their traditional sound after releasing stuff like the Evolve EP.