This is a review of "Twisted And Fallen" recorded by Chevron. The review was written by Sam Saunders in 2002.

Chevron's two-track CD release on the Valentine label is a chaotic splurge of grungy-school-kid rock with an unsteady blast of musical intelligence struggling to escape.

At the stoopid rock nonsense level it howls: "Give me love in the old fashioned way, I am the King of the USA!" And that is about as dumb a line as you can get. But Chevron have worse. Believe me, they have worse. Drumming apart, the playing is pretty suspect too. The singing is weak, but it sounds much worse than it is because of the deeply careless lyrics and clichéd phrasing. A keyboard thing does some spacey sound effects, but doesn't get as far as harmonic changes.

At another level, there are brave attempts to let the incoherent noises of fuzzy guitar and freestyle drumming bring the music closer to present-day standards. Half way through the much better second track, things get distinctly interesting, with a repeating succession of guitar harmonic taps and a some exploratory drumming suggesting that it could open out and really get the listener involved. The cheesy, unsteady power pop beginning gets left for dead and the whole thing starts to build in exciting Mogwai like intensity. But suddenly we cut clumsily and unexpectedly back to a slack tempo and a dull reprise of the song's self-obsessed teen male outburst: "You're still the only girl!" (Girl, naturally, rhymes with world) And then it finishes on a descending phrase in a really deflated mood. A trip to the song-writing clinic is called for.

The recording quality itself could become the subject of cult attention. "How do they get it that murky?" - "Just listen to that bizarre mixing!" - "Hey, a space ship noise!" And so on. It is odd.

You can sense that half the band would love to be going to Sonic Youth's All Tomorrow's Parties. But they play as if have only just learned how to do chords and rock and stuff their mates like, and it's all a bit difficult to make the shift. Besides, the other half of the band seems to prefer Metallica, and it is a band thing and rehearsing is difficult to organise. It sounds as if no one is actually in charge of this bunch of rascals. My demo copy had no copyright information and no song writing credits. The record company website is a shambles and wasn't working when I visited. Perhaps the drummer should take over.