Coming from Clevelend, Ohio, Chimaira's first big-label cd, "Pass out of existince", did quite good, bit didnt make the succes the band hoped it did. For the new disc, "The Impossibility of Reason" (TIOR), the band decided to change their style a little. The electronics and samples got toned down a bit, and the guitar solo came back!

Cleansation starts with a drum/guitar intro, and one of the first things you will realise is that the drumming is all-out on this disc. Andols Herrick shows that he can compete with alot of the top-metal drummers. The song (and the whole cd) has a verry pissed of Mark Hunter singing on it, and it shows, screaming, grunting, yelling, Mark does it all.

The second track, the titel track, rolls on like a big steamtrain running over you, with a great tempo change in the end.

Pictures in the Gold Room is a "slower" track compared to the first two, but its still hard and heavy. It even has some clean singing on it, which doesnt happen much on this cd.

Power Trip is one of the best songs on the cd in my opinion. Its a great track that shows what Chimaira is about, Fast, heavy, and quite catchy. Hunter's vocals are great, he switches between 2 different voices alot, almost resulting in the effect that Chimaira used 2 singers for this track.

Next is the "single" of the album. Down Again is the only real song that could get some airplay, it is the most melodic and "rock" like tune on the cd. It has a nice melodic guitar into, before the rest of the band kicks in. The chorus itself is quite memorable, and it has a nice melodic guitar solo.

Pure Hatred is a real crowd pleaser, and it title of the song certainly covers it content. Heavy riffs, angy vocals, and a great chorus which just asks to be screamed out.

Number seven is "The Dehumanizing Process". This song has one of the better intros I have heard in a while, with the drums building up into a great heavy riffs with some awesome doublebass playing under it.

"Crawl" is also one of the slower songs on the disc. It stands out a bit because its vocals are quite different, compared with the rest of the songs.

The pace picks up again with "Stigmurder", which is another fast and relentless song, with a clean sung chorus, and a great outro riff.

"Eyes of a Criminal" is one of my favorite tracks on the disc, its slower tempo makes it sound heavy as hell. The bridge in it is great as well, because it makes a nice contrast with the rest of the song, and it is followed by a great guitarsolo. The outro is awesome as well, great riff, and great drumming (which actually reminded me abit of Machine Heads Davidian).

"Overlooked" has some great guitar riffs in it, and the vocals really stick in your mind afterwards. There is an awesome tempo change halfway trough the song which really reminded me of some old slayer, while the outro bringed back memories of Fear Factory.

The last song, "Implements of Destruction", is almost a tribute to the old instrumental metal songs that lasted more then 7/8 minutes. Its epic, melodic, and long. It has some nice changes in it, and its a great showcase for the band itself in my opinion, to show the world that bands can still do this sort of things.

The Imposibility of Reason is a great cd, especially in these days when its hard to filter trough the amount of bands that put out garbage for most of the time. I think some more dynamic changes would be welcome, because after a while some of the songs might tend to sound a bit to alike. I hope Chimaira can make the same leap to the 3rd cd as they did with their second!

Tracklisting:
01 - Cleansation
02 - The Impossibility Of Reason
03 - Pictures In The Gold Room
04 - Power Trip
05 - Down Again
06 - Pure Hatred
07 - The Dehumanizing Process
08 - Crawl
09 - Stigmurder
10 - Eyes Of A Criminal
11 - Overlooked
12 - Implements Of Destruction