Chingalera

Dose

Pacific Recordings 2008

Vast and wide open in sound Chingalera from Los Angeles explore so many different themes and moods across the five tracks on their second album, Dose.  The initial composition, The Endless Bummer begins so softly, like a a hazy dream tinged with a bit of emotional regret.  Then a Helmet-esque groove is merged with thick, gargantuan stoner riffs.  Vocals that conjure to mind a sweltering summer in the city strain over the top of the music.  Up next is You Were Happy When You Came In Here which is a strange almost ambient journey that is both mental and astral in the visions it summons.  It is dark and minimal though different influences bubble up to the surface like some Klaus Schulze keyboards and some pounding drums and barked vocals that call to mind Streetcleaner era Godflesh. Eveler has more of throbbing biker groove to its opening passages but changes its mood several times over the course of its 10:31 length.  A sludgy doom-ridden texture closes out the track in plodding fashion.  The shortest song on the album is Fake Maria, clocking in at a lengthy 8:47, and it possess all the subtlety and charm of a bulldozer.  Heavy, meaty guitars with tons of low-end Melvins/Helmet worship, pound like a sweat saturated fist against spacey reverberating bass lines.  My favorite track is the album's final song, Twenty Three which rises like a tar soaked beast from the depths of darkness.  Strange sonic shrieks echo off damp walls while nightmarish vocals linger long after the dreamer wakes.  Not only is the number inescapable, so is this song and its throbbing bass guitar humming profoundly in the shadows like an sinister omen.  I hate the drum production on this album.  Well really it is the snare production I can't stand.  The rest of them are fine and Tom is a talented drummer.  Sometimes this album is hard to listen to as it is too far reaching in its scope.  At times I think this is genius and others it becomes hard to maintain my focus on it.  By no means is Dose an "easy" album.  It creates some dramatic and moving sonic textures.  "A thing of beauty is a joy forever!"