The Demo Review:
Chamber There are currently 1 Reviews of this Demo.
Average Rating: 2
Band Name: Chamber
Demo Title: You And What Army
Band Members: Arjan Kloet (Bass), Dave McLaughlin (Guitar), Jeff Wilkowski (Drums), Tim Brown (Vocals)
Location: Philadelphia, PA
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    • Musashi's Review:
    My first thought after listening to this nine song independent release from Chamber is: why didn't they just do three or four kick-ass songs instead of nine half-assed songs? After the first song, "Dropping Like Flies," I could write my entire review, but I figured I would be fair and listen to the whole CD: a waste of time.

    Chamber is not without a few positive qualities. They sound like a low budget Pantera. I like the sound and overall feel of their music. It is a very pleasing shade of power metal. Tim Brown does a passable Phil Anselmo impersonation, but Tim doesn't have the physical and emotional range that Phil has, although I suspect it will come eventually. Furthermore, Tim's lyrics need work. He spends too much time worrying about simple rhyme schemes, e.g., "You hate me, I am nothing in your eyes. Degrade me, feeding off your lies." After nine songs, his lyrics become somewhat predictable and boring. I found myself trying to guess the lines, with unusual success, before he sang them. Overall, I have say that Tim sounds like a quality frontman that can keep it together.

    The other major problem on this CD is the drumming. It is painfully bad. Mr. Wilkowski's inability to play even sixteenth notes with his feet (repeat after me: one-ee--and--uh, two--ee--and--uh), leads me to wonder if he wouldn't be more suited playing in a marching band. With Christmas around the corner, maybe the guys in the band can chip in and buy Jeff a metronome. Yet another reason why they should have spent more time on fewer songs. Perhaps they could have fixed some of the problems with the drums had they focused on three songs instead of nine.

    The highlight of the CD is, without a doubt, the guitar playing. Although the riffs are not spectacular, they are adequate and the guitars sound good. There are couple of decent solos scattered throughout the CD-- I like the ones in "Madness" and "Mad 9V." However, without a decent beat, the music suffers and the riffs lose a lot of their power.

    Aside from a terrible drum sound and a lot of dropouts, the sound quality is pretty good. I harbor some sort of optimistic belief that if Chamber were to spend more time in the studio doing fewer songs, they would actually be able to kick out a decent demo. If you're good, maybe Santa will bring you a drum machine.
    2 out of 5

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