March 20, 2026

Chamber - this is goodbye... - Album Review

In this episode, the Shittalkreviews crew dives deep into the latest release from the band Chamber, titled "this is goodbye..." The hosts provide a comprehensive, track-by-track breakdown of the entire album, offering their unfiltered opinions and individual ratings for every song—from the opening intensity of "Arms of Eternity" to the final notes of "In Revolving Doors."

Listeners will get an inside look at the album's production, songwriting, and overall place in the heavy metal scene. The episode concludes with a final verdict for the record. Whether you're a long-time fan of Chamber or looking for your next heavy rotation, this review covers everything you need to know about their newest chaos.

Nashville's Chamber has returned with 'this is goodbye...', and it is a masterclass in what the band calls "psychotic mosh metal." In this episode, we break down why this record is a significant leap from 'A Love to Kill For'. We discuss the production by Randy LeBoeuf (who has worked with Knocked Loose and The Acacia Strain) and how he managed to capture the dissonant, glitchy chaos that makes Chamber so unsettling yet addictive.

We also dive into the gear and influences. If you’re a fan of the mathematical violence of Carbomb or the erratic energy of The Dillinger Escape Plan, this album is for you. We explore the themes of dread and self-doubt that permeate the lyrics and debate where this sits in the hierarchy of modern mathcore.

Related Listening: If you dig the intensity of Chamber, check out our recent review of MØL’s Dreamcrush or our deep dive into Archspire's latest technical death metal single.

Chamber band photo

ABOUT

Nothing seems easy anymore, and that sense of constant struggle permeates this is goodbye…, the third full-length album from Nashville’s Chamber. In a modern world defined by exhaustion and the relentless grind of existing, being in a band can feel heavier than ever—and Chamber confronts that reality head-on.

Following 2020’s Cost Of Sacrifice and 2023’s A Love To Kill For, the five-piece channels the emotional and physical toll of touring, online noise, and self-doubt into twelve tracks that wrestle with whether the fight is worth it. Produced by longtime collaborator Randy LeBoeuf (known for his work with Knocked Loose and The Acacia Strain), the album embraces dissonance, strange mathcore rhythms, and unrelenting noisecore heaviness without compromise.

The album’s title, drawn from the closing track “In Revolving Doors,” looms over the record, but rather than signaling an ending, it captures a moment of reckoning and resolve. This tension fuels one of the most intense and cathartic records of the band’s career, touching on grief and existential dread. Nearly a decade into their journey, Chamber has made the record they’ve always been building toward: savage, challenging, and vital.

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Are you ready for this one, Derek? We have a wild record to get into this week. Coming out of Nashville, this is a

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psychotic mosh metal hardcore technical math metal band called Chamber.

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Their album, This Is Goodbye, releases in a few short days on March 27th of 2026. Let's talk about it.

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Yeah, this is an absolute banger.

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Chaotic. And when you think of Nashville, Tennessee, you don't think of math core, noise core. But you can now

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cuz these guys are ascending. They are going to be taking the world by storm and grabbing the title that Dillinger

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Escape Plan had left behind when they kind of sunset it a little bit.

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Yeah. Did you know Chamber before this album?

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I did not. And it stood out to me when we were fishing around for something to listen to that was new and cool. Love

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it. Think it is absolutely just chaos. And as a person that, you know, kind of lived in Boston for a long

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time, Converge was just always out and about. And so I'd go see Converge a lot just because of the shows and it it was

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just, you know, just wild. And I suspect that Chamber and This Is Goodbye is going to catapult them and they are

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going out on tour and we'll get into that in a little bit, but they're wild just like Converge used to be and Converge still is. And I suspect that

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this is just a launching pad for them. I did not know uh Chamber either until this record kind of as we do when we're

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going to talk about an album. I just immersed myself in it in the week or two prior to our conversation and I have

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done that with this album just non-stop again and again and again. I did take a break and go back to their album and they've released three other fulllength

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albums. uh 2023 they released a love to kill for. 2020 had cost of sacrifice and then they've released three EPs along

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the way. Also, I did listen to uh a love to kill for their last record and it's it is certainly similar to this in

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flavor, but this record is wild, man. It is incredible. Uh Mathcore, Noise Rock.

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I I there's so many descriptives that that we could use. They themselves refer to it as psychotic mosh metal, but I've

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also seen in a few other places them described as metalcore. And that is not I don't think that's totally accurate.

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There are some of the hallmarks of metal core in this album, but I would not on any level call this a metal core record.

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It is so involved and so man, it's out there, but it's grounded in rhythm. And I immediately thought of a couple of

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different bands. Uh, Carbomb, Greg Kubaki's projects, Carbomb, Sun Guts, as you said, Dillinger Escape Plan, very

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technical on a lot of fronts. They're utilizing uh, not instruments, but they're utilizing equipment that allows

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them to achieve sounds that are not necessarily all that traditional in the metal realm, but are becoming more so,

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and they are using them in a wild, wild fashion. I love this record. I think it's great. As you said, they're on tour right now or or will be very, very soon.

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and they are a crazy band. This is a crazy album and I am a huge fan.

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Mathematical violence is the words that came to mind for me. And also what's cool about this is they actually went

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into the studio and it was written in the studio. My understanding is they in the past had always had a really calculated way of recording and a lot

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more of a improvisation happened within the studio on this record and it shows it. It it feels like just a live record

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that and I hate to use the comparison with jam bands but it feels kind of like a very fluid recording process that

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resulted in some of that chaos that we like so so much and that we're talking about right now.

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Yeah. the band. Uh, Jacob Lily on vocals, Gabe Emanuel on guitar, also does some uh some singing, Henry Drig or

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DRig on guitar, Chris Smith on bass, and Taylor Carpenter on drums. They are very talented guys clearly and they bring a

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lot of different flavors. You know, some of this some sections are just downright crushing crushing riffs. Super technical, super hard, very aggressive.

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Uh again, you add in some of that that technical uh proficiency with the gear and equipment they're using and it is a

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recipe for a super super intense and really powerful album. You're the musician here. Are those uh pinch

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harmonics that are in there? I think that there's probably certainly a bunch of pinch harmonics and and pick scrapes and things like that that that are a

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little more mainline progressive metal and and standard metal heavy stuff. But

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again, they're using like a digitech whammy pedal and what was the other one that I found? Pitchfork pedals. So they're using this technology very

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similarly to what Greg Kubaki does with Carbomb to achieve these wild, you know,

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I I don't want to say lasers, but when you hear this record, you will know it when you hear it that these are some tones and tricks that you don't get on

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on too many other records, which is one of the reasons I think I like it so much.

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Well, I think this is a beginning. Even though I you could say this is Goodbye is a breakup record. It's a you know,

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they're they're going to say off themselves, it's not. it. This is a big giant bird finger to all the things that

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hold them back. And you know, look, life is weird. We talked about it on the podcast. You can't turn on the news without getting irritated and

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frustrated. Um, everybody is at each other's throats, you know, prior to this call. You know, it's talking about St.

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Patrick's Day and going out and you should be able to go out on St.

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Patrick's Day and have a beer and not worry too much, especially me being Irish. But the world is pissed off and

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we are divided and this record really really resonates in that it's pissed.

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It's mad and it you should be mad and you should be pissed off at the things that are holding you back in life.

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There's a lot of them and I love that these guys really really took the moment and grasped it. they are owning it and

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taking the ability like the not being so rigid and going to the studio and letting the music kind of flow really worked and I think that these guys are

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going to grab a torch for noise core whatever you want to call it and and really run with it.

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Did you do uh your standard sort of lyrical deep dive uh in terms of you know listening to the lyrical content? I

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didn't go too deep into it. Um, but they are very irritated with, you know, just certain things in life. I was more interested in the production qualities.

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Uh, Randy Labou, not not Shia Labou did the did the production on this. So,

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Randy is responsible for literally making these guys bleed in his studio.

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No doubt. Um, you know, if you're a fan of Knocked Loose, who has, you know,

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been at the forefront of a of a hardcore genre for a long time, the Acacia Strain and Vincent from Vincent Bennett from

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Acacia, guests on one of the tracks here, or Code Orange, who is another sort of glitch metal uh band that's

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really making some some noise these days. You're probably really going to love this record. I don't, as you know,

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I I'm not a big lyrical content guy. I I listen to vocals more from a rhythmic perspective and sort of as a textural

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and and instrumental uh layer in an album. So I I didn't go I just don't look at lyrical content much. So I'm always curious to get your take.

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Yeah, it's it's about the weight of dread. Just certain parts of life that's dread and self-doubt. a lot of self-doubt and we all can relate to that

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especially when you're just inundated every day with whatever social media going to work right there are

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differences of opinions there there are differences of opinions on TV you can go to the grocery store and there's differences of opinions and frankly

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dread is a really good one there's a lot of things in life as an adult that can be dreadful and so like even just the

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other day just to give you an idea I had to at lunch very quickly. Went to Wendy's and got there and then the car

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in front of me broke down and they got out and pushed this car out of the way so I could go get my but literally 15 minutes later, right? And you go,

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"What?" And are we at a point in this world where we don't have a plan here?

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And it's just like you don't expect that kind of dread to sit there for 15 minutes at a drive-thru. You're going for fast food to get fast food because I

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had places to be and things to do and everything else. It was a weekend. So,

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the fact the fact that your fast food turned into slow food and that was enough to just crush your day.

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Hey, where's the beef? I don't think there's anybody back there.

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All I wanted was Junior Bacon Cheeseburger. Hey, Wendy's, if you want to be a sponsor, we'd love to have you.

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Even though you're closing stores, so maybe not.

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Wow. Well, I you know, it's a visceral record. Maybe you should have switched up while you were there in line waiting for that double bacon cheese.

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Yeah, I probably Well, junior bacon cheeseburger. You know, I don't go very often because I'm over 50 and it will kill me. Like you're watching that boyish figure.

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Yeah. Well, I'm also watching my boyish heart. Fair enough. I think metal in general is one of those genres that for

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those of us who are heathens and still smoke cigarettes and things like that or have the occasional cocktail or whatever, you can take your favorite

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metal record and it can do for you what you need done in that moment. The same way some people look at a cigarette or a beer or a cocktail or what what have you where if you need to relax a little bit,

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you can put your favorite metal record on or you can have a drink or what whatever. If you want to get spun up,

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you can put your favorite metal record on. And I think this is one of those albums that's so intense and so powerful. It can do any of that and all

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of it. And the hope is that you use that that great power with some some real responsibility. Yeah,

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I I did I I did want to drive my Honda into this piece of crap in front of me at the drivethru

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and uh didn't but smart move. Chamber,

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you you had me this close. If I wasn't listening to that, I was listening to,

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you know, whatever mellow music like Grateful Dead or something. Not that I like the Grateful Dead, but if that was on, no way. I I I wouldn't even cross my mind. I would have been like, "Yeah,

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this is irritating and I really want my fast food because I got things to do." But Chamber. Yeah.

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Really? And you know, it's funny that moment is kind of like a country song,

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so it's fitting that we're talking about a band from Nashville,

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but my car didn't break down and all they did was antagonize me to want to run them over.

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Yeah. Well, they uh uh they are known as I understand it due to my uh my Google fooing that uh you know they are they

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are known for some pretty violent live shows. Now I think that's perhaps maybe a misused term but you know these amped

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up you know heavy duty hardcore shows people do get spun up and this is an album where I can definitely see

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somebody getting spun up if they wanted to get fired up. It's a crazy record and it sucks. I wish that the that the

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social media platforms would allow us to put samples of the con, you know, these albums into our conversations, but they

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don't like it. They don't like us using copyrighted material, which I respect. I don't want to take money out of anybody's pocket for sure, but I It's

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one of those records that until you hear it, listening to you and I talk about it may not make a whole lot of sense, but as soon as you start the record, the first track, Arms of Eternity, you know,

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in the first 5 seconds of that song what's coming for you. And it is, you better be strapped in, have your boots pulled up real high, and you better be

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ready to go because it is it is a wild ride. All the songs are are pretty short. I think the longest song on the record is like three maybe 3 and 1/2

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minutes. So, it's these really super intense bursts of of really crazy,

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chaotic, hectic musicality that is on the surface might be a bit much to take, but it is all anchored together really,

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really well. It's not chaos for the sake of chaos. It's very highly, again, I hate to keep referencing Carbomb, but

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they've been on my radar for a couple of years now. It is like really highly refined chaos if that makes sense. Absolutely.

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No violins, high octane discordants and I can't imagine seeing that live. It has

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to be an absolute wreckage of a of a experience watching that. Another standout track for me was Without a

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Trace. It's just technical chaos. It's I would love to see them just to see them perform this and then watch the pit turn

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into demonology. Like everybody's like reading, you know, carving pentagrams into their arms and then beating a snot out of each other. Like that has to

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happen with without a trace. No doubt in my mind.

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Another thing about the record that I think is so great is the mix. You know,

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on the production side, the mix is is super super solid. And one of the the important things with a mix is when you have so much audio data to contend with.

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Uh, and this is stuff that that Studio Rats and Engineers, they they all know it and these guys did a great job. Labuff certainly had a big hand in this.

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And the low end on the record is super super tight, which it has to be with so

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much madness transpiring. If the low end was left not, you know, brought in and and really focused, it could this album

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could have been a muddy mess to listen to. But because the mix is so good,

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everything is really well defined. And props to I don't know if Labuff mixed it as well as produced it, but he kept

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everything so tight that nothing got lost on that record. And the musical gymnastics are still very very transparent and audible, which I I think

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is a technical achievement and really cool to listen to. They captured sheer intensity. And have you ever gone to to

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see a band like you listen to their their material and you're like, "Ah, it's good." and then you see them live,

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you're like, "Holy crap." Then you go back to their recorded material and you really like it because you saw them live, but they didn't really capture the

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live experience, I suspect that this is very close to the live experience. Like,

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if you can if you can create capture sheer intensity in audio form and put it out there and then irritate an old man wanting to run people over at Wendy's,

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you've done your job. Good job. I won't argue that point.

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Yeah. So, standouts on this. We could track by track it, but it's like I said,

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man, they're they're just they're these like a shotgun blast of of madness within a minute and a half, two minutes,

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two and a half minutes. I do have standout tracks. Violins is is 100% one of my standouts on this record. So many

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cool tonal choices in there that I think as a whole just make it such a powerful piece of music. You know, there's some

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great metric modulation with the tempo and messing with the feel of the count at the end of the song. It's brutal.

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Another one of my standouts, Without a Trace. It's an absolute bruiser of a track. Like, every time I'd play the album through, I'd get to that one and

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I'd go back and start it again and again and again. It somehow felt more chaotic,

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if possible. That song felt more chaotic than the other tracks, but it has these little like breakdown sections throughout that all suck it back

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together and give it this great anchor feeling. Um, and make it that much more approachable, too, which I think is really cool for an album that is so

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largely based in chaos. But the rhythms are chaotic. The chord choices and bizarre intervals that they used are

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crazy. The vocals are completely unhinged. Um, so yeah, that that those would be a couple of the standouts for

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me. I know you liked violins. Any other tracks that really spoke to you?

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Yeah, those I I mean those are the two that really stood out for me and uh I went back to them and found myself going back to those two tracks. No, I was

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going to say upcoming US tour supporting Malevolence and Guilt Trip, who I really like. I love Guilt Trip, but that's a

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heck of a lineup. We did we reviewed Malevolence last year. Great record,

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great band. Guilt Trip is another upandcomer. I think we've put on some of our gain posts, you know, on social

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media. Guilt trip has been on there and they got some real good bangers. So,

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that's a great lineup starting March 31st in Chicago, going all the way through uh the North America, ending

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April 14th in Atlanta, Georgia, Georgia at the Masquerade, which is a great venue if you haven't been. So, certainly go there. But yeah, they're hitting all the the entire East Coast. Richmond,

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Virginia, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Montreal, Toronto,

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Detroit, and they're starting in Chicago, like I said, on the 31st. Yeah,

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Malevolence is such a great band. They were at the top of my list for albums of the year. So, what a what a powerhouse bill that is. The Detroit show is at a

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place called The Shelter, which is in St. Andrews Hall, which used to be a church. that was, you know, I'm a Michigan boy and that was one of my

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venues, so I was so excited that they were going to be playing there.

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Regrettably, I will not be traveling back to Michigan to go see it. But if you're in Detroit and you like, you like the crazy man, what a great place to see this band and Malevolence for sure.

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And you and I went to the Paradise in Boston and saw Max. And uh I will actually be there on March 21st for a band that's not metal.

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Yeah, I it's a birthday party thing that I got to go to. So luckily the brewery that Lord Hobo has Boom Sauce there and

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the last time I was thoroughly drunk was drinking Boom Sauce from Lord Hobo with you. Yeah. And uh watching Max and I

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have not drank like that since. Nor will I probably ever again because I was hurting the next day. Yeah, you were.

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But the Paradise, great venue, too.

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We'll be there March 21st and we'll be choking my way through a band that's there having uh some boom sauce.

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Yeah, when at the Paradise we saw we saw Max and Cavalier Conspiracy and our friends in Death Ray Vision, Keith Bennett. So, shout out Keith. We chatted

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with him uh been messaging back and forth and you're absolutely right,

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Keith. We we we both need to get back up, but maybe you'll bump into him there while you're watching a Barbara Stryand or whoever it is you'll be seeing.

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I actually was going to hit up Keith and see if he wanted to meet me there and have a boom sauce. I actually I don't think he drinks. Um but uh it it

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certainly would be fun uh to to catch up with him and it would give me a reason to and maybe I'll come back down April 7th for the you know to see this this lineup because it's a great one.

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Great guy. That's going to be an amazing tour and I hope I can get in front of one of those shows. Well, great record,

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great band. I'm excited to have been introduced to them and they'll be on my list of bands to watch and if you're into anything even remotely chaotic,

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they should be on your list of bands to watch, too.

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Absolutely. A quick shout out, I've been uh I'm going to give a shout out to myself. I've been giving our website a facelift and and working with uh our CMS

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platform and uh I think website looks pretty good. So, check it out if you haven't already. Uh, be sure to go and like and subscribe and follow us on

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whatever podcast channel that uh you you tend to to to travel on and I think gains fun. So hopefully you guys are enjoying it as well.

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Yeah. And you can leave a voicemail on there for us too and tell us how idiotic you believe we to be. And I don't really care if you do. Yeah.

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Actually, you know what? You don't want to because what I might do is get in my Honda or drive over you with listening to Chambers. Uh, this is goodbye. So,

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don't mess with me. Next time you're in a fast food drive-thru, just keep your eye in the rearview mirror for a Honda. If you see one, just keep it moving. Keep it moving.

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That's right. And Honda, you want to sponsor us, you know where to call.

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All right. Excellent stuff, man. We'll see you next time.

Derek Showerhead

John Staley

Chamber - this is goodbye... - Album Review

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