Chusss: Becoming.. The Visit II Album Review

Sep 30, 2017
3 min read

Prior to listening to this album, I had no knowledge who Chusss was or the type of music he created so I had no expectations for what I was about to listen to. All I knew was it's an instrumental album, but would it be electronic, blues, metal? Well, it turns out it's a bit of all of those things and more. Some songs or sections wouldn't sound out of place in an electronic artists set, or at a smokey blues bar or played by one of the greats such as Gary Moore or Steve Vai. If the song 'Barood' was rewritten as a MIDI track it could easily work in the soundtrack for the original DOOM games. The album starts off with the song, 'Myth You Much' and begins with a melodic clean guitar riff slowly building with more guitar layers, drums and atmospheric elements, even adding bongo's and seemed very exotic, all the while continuing to build towards a huge sounding lead guitar solo taking many elements from blues-rock greats like Gary Moore and musicians such as Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. And when I say guys like Steve Vai I don't mean playing up and down the fretboard at a million notesa minutes although he does show off his technical ability with some fast playing. But I could feel every note Chusss plays and the emotion he felt during each one, each note in the song whether it was his lead guitar playing, the rhythm or even the drum beat, everything feels like it has a purpose and the song would be missing a key element if any of them were removed. Despite the songs weaving in and out or various genres and styles it still maintains a consistent theme throughout. The album doesn't jump from a blues song to a metal song to an ambient song but rather borrows a little bit of this and a little bit of that while still keeping its core concept. One element that is present throughout the album is a strong Arabic touch with a hint of Egyptian influence too, I was initially struggling to put my finger on it and could best describe it as exotic but it can be heard throughout the whole album and I think this is what made the album stand out to me, especially on the initial first listen. The album kept me hooked by presenting a fresh idea for each song, from very ambient and almost relaxing tracks such as “Syringe Of Hope” to more metal tracks such as “Khan Yakhoon”, no track seemed out of place and I realised it's because Chusss cleverly kept the core influence and theme throughout every song by choice of instruments, chord progressions and scales used.

The concept of this album is summarized in the album title "The Visit II" which is a continuation of a previous album "The Visit I" where all songs are soundtracks of true or inspired imaginative stories that happened in the journey of life or "The Visit" Becoming.. The Visit II was written and recorded between 2012-2015 and it's clear to see why the album was a long time in the making. An album this thought out, with such attention to detail, cannot be rushed. There have been many concept albums over the year and I'd easily put this toe to toe with some of the best of them. As listeners, we tend to cycle through an album and figure out our favourite songs, but being a concept album I highly recommend you listen to the album from start to finish on your first listen. Just put some headphones on or listen through your favourite speakers and enjoy the experience, that's what I did and I really enjoyed the experience. I can see this being an album that I come back to time and time again, whether for enjoyment as a listener or as inspiration as a musician. Chusss is definitely an artist you should be keeping an eye on and one that I definitely will be. Some standout tracks for me are; Myth You Much, Oil & Water, Kan Lazem A3raf, Canim, SaqaMaHat & Men 7een Le Akhar, although I didn't find a song on the album I didn't like.