Chase James Wigmore - "We Are All Going To Die" Album Review!!

It's time for our 163rd monthly CD review at The Sault Metal Scene and first one of 2023, as we're taking a look at local extreme metal/folk punk musician Chase James Wigmore's newest album "We Are All Going To Die"! Independently released to his Bandcamp page on November 19th, this is the twenty-sixth album of his to go on official sale there, though he has more albums that stalled as free postings elsewhere. Perhaps Chase's penultimate solo album if you believe some of his teasers last year, "We Are All Going To Die" (formerly named "Is This The End Of...") was recorded at his home studio last year, and credits Chase alone on all instruments. You can buy this album for $7 on Bandcamp, where you can also stream it for free, but consider a purchase to support Chase's work! With 12 songs running for about 45 minutes, let's begin this review!

The opening song is "What Really Matters", which is basically the calm before the storm, serving as a reserved instrumental guitar/bass performance with no vocals, percussion or obvious effects. As the effective intro, it gets the job done, but it may have served better for contrast if Chase had recorded this unplugged? Next is "Spiritual Casualties", which continues the metal-leaning album's build-up with an ominous, but still not full-bore, song that introduces more (but not all) of the full band experience. Chase delivers slow & cryptic vocals as the background effects build around his instrumentation, and aside from some industrial beats in later stretch, drums are not heard again. As a longer track that feels more like a proper song, this is an improvement as "We Are All Going To Die" continues getting built up! Drumming finally appears on track 3, "You're Dead", as do Chase's harsh vocals, if in a backing role.

The steady upward metal progression continues here, as the song is more aggressive, yet in the background, with the band approach is done more in an unplugged style (if still plugged in). Chase lays down a good guitar solo, but this song got somewhat noisy and jumbled at parts, feeling oddly spare at points when you don't expect it to, so it's inconsistent for me. Fourth is "Don't Worry, We Have A Plan", which is a techno instrumental piece not unlike Chase's old Black Lodge Masters work, featuring an assortment of instruments and effects, including what sounds like a synthesizer riff out front. Honestly, this sounds like video game music, which isn't entirely a bad thing, but it is definitely a tonal shift, if one that will intrigue progressive rock fans. Neat diversion, but fans of Chase's intense extreme metal may not take to this the same.

Next on the album is "Psycherosion", which returns to more of a traditional structure with vocal & guitar input (at first), with more of a dark ballad before dipping back to electronica for the bulk of the runtime, including scratchy background noise, though Chase's guitar and percussion tracking does recur.  The song directly runs into track #6, hence the abrupt ending, but why not smush them together, especially when "Psycherosion" feels unfinished? The direct follow-up, entitled "Without You", is the album's shortest song, and it really marries the earlier dark & ominous overtones with the electronic music here, pacing the mid-tempo singing with some very game-inspired samples and a nice (if somewhat too layered) guitar solo. Is it bad that some of Chase's singing and lyrics here remind me of slower Static-X material? I like the style contrast here, and this song is a definite highlight from the first half of the album!

Song #7 is "The End Part One: Loss", which is the only song on the album to exceed 5 minutes in length, and here, Chase finally lets loose with a full on extreme metal fury! However, he warms up to the aggression with low spoken word layered under post-production effects, including some audible clipping (at least to my ears). This song jumps in tone dramatically at points, but it's a good change of pace, and it shows his knack for programming while still showcasing his heaviest work, and some of his late guitar riffing has a nice funk element to it, so the album is on an upward swing for me! Of course, "The End Part Two: Ender" follows, though the two songs don't share a ton of musical similarities on surface level. This song is more techno-driven, with Chase's low, ominous spoken word returning in the mix, but the drum programming peeks through, and Chase does deploy some very grindcore-esque harsh vocals as well.

I can't say that "Part Two" works as a song as well as "Part One", as it's not as heavy and mixes its genres less distinctly, but it's not bad for what it is! Next is "The Guilt & Shame Of Being", which will be a familiar idea if you best know Chase from solo acoustic performances (in concert, Facebook, or otherwise). It starts with him in campfire ballad mode, if very downbeat and morose about it, but the last stretch of the song sees him go haywire with some unplugged shredding buoyed by some background echo effects. This is the tale of two songs, but I do like Chase's solo stuff when done like both halves, so fans will be into it if they're prepared! Tenth up is "Everybody Now Apparently", an oddly jazzy song that's spiced up by an overly loud drum track, layered effects irreverent dialogue (some about the Soo), and primarily harsly sung lyrics, contrasting sharply with the music.

Definitely an eclectic song, and never boring, but I can't help but assume that the pieces would be accentuated better if the song proper was heavier (it can still have a jazz influence, just pump things up a bit!) The penultimate song on offer belatedly completes the trilogy with the album's title track, "The End Part Three: We Are All Going To Die", which doubles down on any techno influence of earlier songs for a full-on industrial noise collage to start before mellowing with spacier effects, layered spoken word, a some more funky guitar soloing late, and some anguished screaming at the end. Of the three "The End" tracks, I'd put this in the middle for enjoyability, as it had a better balance of styles than "Part Two", but wasn't as heavy and intense as "Part One", punishing industrial opening acknowledged. The album ends with "The Crisis That Became The World", which is something of a softer coda at first.

While always layered with effects and background noise, things end on an extreme metal note with Chase's harsh screaming vocals (if mixed low) along with more of his trademark guitar excellence, and the increasing piling-on of effects and music ends the album on a fitting note, so fans of Chase's heavier side will like the ending! As for the whole album, this is definitely a stylistic departure from his prior 2022 album "Sonic Apocalypse", heavily influenced by techno and industrial genres, something that he was more known for including in Awokest and Black Lodge Masters material rather than eponymous stuff. Hr knows he's doing to make audio collages with samples, effects, and dialogue layered on top of each other, and I can't imagine the work it took to put some of the more complex songs together, but this may come at a cost for fans of Chase's more metal and folk punk-leaning material on past albums & videos.

He hasn't really made a true folk punk album in a while now, and the full-on extreme metal sides were used sparingly here, often in partial form to contrast with more reserved or electronic-themed material. I can get behind "We Are All Going To Die" conceptually, and there are standout tracks here, like "The End Part One" and "The Crisis That Became The World" for the metal quotient, while "Without You" and "The Guilt & Shame Of Being" struck a good balance, especially for the darker overtones! That said, some of the songs' mixes could be a little muddled compared to others, his vocals were sometimes inaudible as such, I'd have combined "Psycherosion" & "Without You" into one track, and I get the sense that this album had an overarching theme and story that could have been explained more beyond Facebook posts. Overall, Chase delivered some more intriguing stuff here, and diehard fans shouldn't bypass it!

Buy or stream "We Are All Going To Die" at the above links, and I hope you guys liked this month's CD review! Look for our review of one of Sykotyk Rampage's late 2022 studio albums on the site next month, and stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!