View From The Pit review of Chang
View From The Pit
Issue Date: April 2002
Author: Duncan Garvie
To say this is not what I was expecting is certainly an understatement. While a lot of very strange and innovative music is coming out of the British underground at the moment, this, it has to be said, is the strangest.
Their music I could only describe as Mr. Bungle influenced with a groove that makes you think of the Rollins Band. The only problem is, that whilst they sound very original and interesting, there’s just no hook. They just never quite reach that groove that you need to get you nodding along.
Every song has moments where you really start to get into the music, but at those moments it either moves off on a tangent to where the music has been going, or never achieves the climax that it’s so obviously begging for.
With so much nu-metal, and bands that have repetitive riff, Chang are, if nothing else, a breath of fresh air. A breath of fresh air, which could possibly herald the next "scene" in metal.
There's absolutely nothing here that I dislike, but it’s just missing that something that it needs, and I think that in the next few years, you could see Chang find that necessary something, and then they will be a force to be reckoned with!
