The Chariot is a band that seems to have gotten the short end of the stick during the last few years. Mostly because he left Norma Jean right before they really started to go downhill, I don’t think Josh Scogin’s The Chariot has ever really gotten the kudos they deserve for the freeform, peerless, raucous punk-n-metal noise that they create. Somehow the crappiness of latter NJ releases unfortunately tended to overshadow the consistenly awesome output that Scogin’s new band contrbuted to the music world, but hopefully some of that will start to change. Landing on the music map somewhere among an array of bands such as Converge, Lightning Bolt, Meshuggah, Sonic Youth, and Drive Like Jehu, I believe The Chariot are a band who have earned the right to be mentioned among the hardcore genre’s modern luminaries for their commitment to purely original and exciting underground punk rock.
The band just released their new album Wars and Rumors of Wars, and I’m hoping that this will finally be the one to grant them their justified notoriety as one of hardcore and metals most independently minded collectives. For a preview, watch their visually stunning new video for “Daggers” below and get a sense of the controlled, epic, experimental chaos that the The Chariot creates. …And local residents take note: tomorrow they’ll be in St. Paul for a show with equally exceptional modern tech/death metal bands Gojira and Car Bomb; don’t miss it!
MIND INVERSION 