Chevelle - Point #1

Chevelle's Point #1 is the sound of three brothers from Illinois working out how heavy they could get without letting go of melody, and it remains the rawest record in their catalogue.

Released in 1999 on Squint Entertainment, the debut paired Pete, Joe and Sam Loeffler with Steve Albini, who recorded and mixed it at his Electrical Audio studio in Chicago in a little over two weeks. Albini had no interest in sanding a young band down for radio, so the guitars sound like amplifiers moving air in a room and the drums land with physical weight.

That dry, unvarnished approach suits the songs. Pete's voice moves between a hushed, almost confessional murmur and a full-throated howl, and the trio lean hard on dynamics, letting quiet passages hang in the air before the riffs come crashing back in. Mia and the title track Point #1 were the songs that first introduced them to rock fans, while Open and Skeptic show how much tension they could wring from a handful of heavy chords.

Bigger budgets and bigger choruses arrived with Wonder What's Next, but there is something special about hearing a band this close to the source. This is where the Chevelle story starts, and on vinyl it sounds every bit as stark and immediate as it did in 1999.