by Mick Reed (@thasoundblog)
Step out of your skin and into the new 7" In Due Time from Chicago hardcore punk band C.H.E.W. Back in 2018 these face mulchers released the phenomenal Feeding Frenzy, a raw, exposed swath of human nervous system, infected with all manner of hungry psychic vermin. It's been entirely too long since that release slid through the creases in my brain, and I think the wounds its left have healed enough for me to go a second round with the band. If I end up in the ICU, though, it's my own damn fault. I knew what I was getting into when I dove back in.
C.H.E.W.'s style is at once both familiar and alien. An interstitial plain of eye-brow whitening fury and fountainous vomiting angst, spilling out from your speakers and corroding the linoleum. There is a tendency in my mind to want to slot them into traditions of wiry bandsaw punk pioneered by Negative Approach, Ill Repute, and the like. While I think to an extent, this is right on the money, such a comparison does not capture the free-fall rush of C.H.E.W.'s obstreperous commitment to delivering a full dose of mind unwinding venom with each song. With each greasy, untamed lick, they drag you further into the sub-basement of the human mind, to confront memories and feelings long forgotten and cemented into the earth. In time, all things return to the surface though, and C.H.E.W. are happy to show you what distorted self-images and self-annihilating ambitions they've unearthed for themselves, and they're not about to let you leave their company digging out a little nest of shame for yourself as well.
Opener "Knucklehead" will crack you head right open with the aluminum plated swing of a spiked guitar groove, spilling your head's pate into the open jaws of vocalist Doris Jeane so that she can spew the remanence of your organ across the ceiling in a scene reminiscent of John Depp's infamous death in Nightmare on Elm Street. Riding that same groove takes you into the kiln of "King Kurtis," an insurance voiding pile-up of clattering drums, breathless scything guitars, and Jeane's feral snarl. "Toxoplasmosis" picks up a pummeling thrust of a spirit usurping dread and fatalistic tumult, propelled by self-mutilating intent, like launching oneself headfirst into a medical waste dumpster full hypodermic needles. The sardonic "Baby Don't Fear the Reaper" does nothing to allay ones fears of their impending mortal exit, and closer "Noise Square" adopts a bawdy, wide-hipped groove and bullies its way through a thicket of spined reeds, marching resolutely into a swamp of leeching guitar and quicksand beats, until it is submerged entirely in an anaerobic stratum. In Due Time is ten minutes of purling catharsis whose hurt you will hate to leave.