The moment Shannon Larkin walked out of Amen and into Godhead, or Godsmack, or whatever the fuck awful band with 'God' in their name it was that he walked into, Casey Chaos was turned into that much maligned Dani Filth-esque character. You know the type, right? The ones that float around the music press on a weekly basis, but whom no one seems to like, or at least, will admit to liking. Not to mention the phalanx of complaints from long suffering former band members writing all-revealing open letters about how these characters are complete and utter bastards. Not to mention the relative mediocrity of anything that this character may or may not have been involved with for however long you want to read this as. The worst thing about these sorts of characters, though, is that they never, ever, actually seem to do anything. Ever. Except for now.
Ignoring the mislaid claim that he's reformed Emperor, Casey Chaos has formed a band with members of Emperor and Turbonegro. That band is Scum, and you know what? Scum turned out to sound exactly like what you'd expect this band to sound like. Another supergroup that got together and wrote a bunch of songs that was bound to do well because of the names of those involved and so, never really had to be all that good to get the media interested.
Gospels for the Sick doesn't surprise, doesn't ever change ethic or course over the ten crunching tracks. There is nothing that stands up and makes one say, 'Holy shit, this is the last thing I expected from this band.' It just steamrolls on with Chaos yelping over the top of tight guitar riffing that sounds just too perfect and just too produced to create the dirty, filthy rock sounds that this album doesn't reek of, but tries to anyway.
And you know what? It's not even a bad thing. There are too many bands wanting to do something new. Too many bands floating around out there trying to diversify, to experiment, to boldly go' For once, it's nice to have a rock album that rocks. It's nice to have a rock album that just keeps going without giving a fuck about itself. And, you know, underneath all of the overzealous production values, this is a great fucking rock album. You know, a rock album that is influenced by rock albums that were influenced by rock albums, that were influenced'
Gospels for the Sick begins as an Amen album. Opener, 'Protest Life' would be at home on any Amen album. 'Road to Suffrage', 'Backstabbers go to Heaven' and 'Deathpunkscumfuck' all have the same influences, if not the obvious attachment to Amen. It may have a metallic edge, tacitly bubbling away under the surface, but Gospels for the Sick is a punk album at heart. It's only with 'Truth won't be Sold' and closer, 'The Perfect Mistake', featuring guest vocals from Emperor's Nocturno Culto, where the metallic influences comes to the surface. But when you've got punk as raw and energetic as this, who needs anything else?
This album is almost enough to restore faith in a genre that has all too often seemed long dead. Put your personal feelings about Casey Chaos aside. Despite its short-comings, this is still the best album of its type this year.
