Beauty in Chaos ‘Finding Beauty in Chaos’ Review: guitarist Michael Ciravolo’s new album brings together an intimidating group of guest vocalists and musicians for remarkably consistent début.
★★★★
Beauty in Chaos’s guitarist and mastermind Michael Ciravolo has amassed connections to some of the most sought-after musicians in the industry thanks to his role as CEO for Schecter Guitars, and playing in groups including (the Michael Aston-led) Gene Loves Jezebel, The Models and Human Drama.
And on his new album Finding Beauty in Chaos (out 9/28/18 on 33.3 Music Collective), Ciravalo cashes in all his chips, with an album featuring a veritable who’s who of veteran post-punk artists, classic rock figures and alt-rock up and comers.
“I look at this as an evolving entity that I am the ‘curator,'” he states in the album’s press release. “I am the only guitarist and no keyboards are used, but you will hear loads of textures created from guitars and effect pedals. This is a convergence of textures and styles that I envisioned blossoming.” And from one listen, its clear he achieved his goal.
The album opens with Road to Rosario, a trance-inducing number featuring hypnotic guitar lines and the jagged croon of band mate Aston that exudes rain-drenched sonics.
The Mission UK frontman Wayne Hussey guests on two of the album’s most insistent tracks, Man of Faith (featuring The Cure’s Simon Gallup on bass) and the melodramatic, soaring earworm The Long Goodbye.
The album’s most prominent vocalist is The Awakening’s Ashton Nyte, whose Peter Murphy-esque pipes adds Gothic portent on the album’s first single Storm and the middle-eastern tinged ballad Bloodless and Fragile.
While the album largely dabbles in goth soundscapes, it cranks up the angst when appropriate. Ministry’s Al Jourgensen lends his serrated howl to a spirited cover of T. Rex’s 20th Century Boy, an industrial stomper only rivaled in heaviness by the Dug Pinnick/Ice-T duet Unnatural Disaster.
Ciravolo also applies his soundscapes to several shoegaze tracks including the dusky ballad Heliotrope (featuring Betsy Martin) and the My Bloody Valentine-esque Look Up (featuring Ciravolo’s wife Tish Ciravelo).
Perhaps the biggest musical left turn arrives in the moody power ballad Drifting Away, featuring Cheap Trick vocalist Robin Zander, which shows a more understated gravitas from a singer best known for sunny power pop.
Oftentimes albums featuring so many cooks in the kitchen can lose focus. But Ciravolo’s steady hand assures a high level of consistency and quality that makes Finding Beauty in Chaos a must listen for lovers of 80’s goth, power-pop, industrial, alternative rock and all things in-between.
Much like the title, it finds harmony through unlikely and combustible elements, making it one of the most unusual and engaging albums of the year.
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