The darkness that presides over every aspect of The Chamberlains’ music is the perfect fit for the abrasive glossiness of Mike Stephens’s voice and his glassy melodies. With lyrics loaded with ominous humor exploring the dark corners of modern society, Metropolis, and Mental Rejects is a mentally and aurally stimulating listen to that grips you in a vice and does not let go.
A group based in Sydney, Australia, The Chamberlains are masterminded by distinctive singer and songwriter Mike Stephens and his eccentric lyricism. The second full length after 2021’s Kingdom of The Swine, the group returns with a brand new collection of pristine, crisply produced pieces of dark alternative rock in Metropolis and Mental Rejects. Defined by intense guitars sounding large with a regal tremolo and a haunted, clean tone, alongside Stephen’s looming baritone, the Swans influence becomes clear from the album’s first few bars.
Starting the album with the foreboding bass and eerie ambience of ‘Metropolis’ serves as a brilliant introduction to the group’s core musical elements. The effective fewness of the chords, the space between the prominent guitar lines, filled with the sharp-toothed bass riff, all play a fantastic role in introducing listeners to The Chamberlains. ‘Gremlins’ follows, introducing the macabre humor the group is capable of, both musically and lyrically. The seesaw composition and puzzling lyrics, alongside a steady, driving groove, make ‘Gremlins’ an immersive and entertaining listen with a refreshing flair of drunken, dissonant folk. A superbly written piece of alternative rock.
‘Postcards from Jamaica’ settles for being less unsettling and more dynamic and driving. The song’s most accessible song up until this point benefits from an excellent groove and a pulling chord structure, a formula that adds a tangible gravity to the song with the most efficient and easygoing flow on the whole album. ‘Danes Macabre’ is sadly not an alternative rock version of Camille Saint-Saëns’s iconic and timeless classic. Instead, it is a groovy and dynamic piece whose Phrygian gravity makes it one of the album’s darkest and most unsettling pieces, with a healthy dose of dissonance that makes it the album’s most challenging offering until this point.
The penultimate ‘Invitation to Party’ showcases a new dimension to Stephens’s voice, being sung from a more of a mid-range register, the song lets loose the foreboding baritone that has gripped the album on all the previous songs in favor of a lighter and more approachable vocal delivery. That is not to say that the song is without its own dark edge. With the lyrical darkness and looming instrumental composed of a start-stop bass riff, unsettling vocal processing, and a funeral march procession, alongside the album’s sole appearance of distorted guitars, ‘Invitation to a Party’ is its own kind of thing, and the gently heaving heaviness is a pleasure to behold on this cornerstone in the album’s far end. ‘Last Night in Norwich’ is a delicately melodic tailpiece that showcases a gentler and more effervescent side to the group’s brooding sound. With a pronounced guitar riff, clean and with a prominent tremolo, alongside a buoyant bass riff and a driving groove, The Chamberlains are mirroring Timber Timbre on this accessible and genial closer.
The Chamberlains’s second full-length offering is varied, with uniformly dark undertones and washed-out colors. The results are delightfully ominous. A cohesive, artful listen by a relatively fresh songwriter and a group of capable musicians supporting his crystal-clear vision and direction. Metropolis and Mental Rejects is a sublime listen of a rarely seen color of alternative rock.
