The Best Of Coal Chamber – Coal Chamber

I saw Coal Chamber at Download in 2013 and I remember thinking they were ok. I did note that they had a female bass player and I was impressed with her leather coat. Now, before I Google images to see how my memory matches up to reality we could have a discussion about how memory works. But maybe I’ll leave that for another time. The short version is that memory doesn’t work the way you think it does and is quite fallible.

Chela Rhea Harper
Chela Rhea Harper

OK, so it wasn’t a leather coat but rather a denim outfit. I was close. I suspect I conflated my memory of Coal Chamber and Gary Moore from a Wembley Arena gig back in the early 90s when he came on stage in a glorious long leather coat.

You know when you buy a “best of” and then you do sometimes wonder. If this is the best then was is the rest like? I would say the first four songs on here are really good. But after that I’m not that fussed by them. I think it might be something to do with the sound of this band. It has a Korn feel to the sound and I’ve never quite got on with that. I’m not sure why given that I have been having an industrial revival recently. The overall sound of this band just misses me.

The song Sway contains lyrics from the 1984 single “The Roof Is On Fire” by Rock Master Scott and the Dynamic Three. I guess for shocking the establishment it works perfectly.