Chevelle

Not to get all morbid on you or anything, but the English translation of Chevelle's fourth studio album, 2006's Vena Sera, is "vein fluid" — a.k.a. the blood-letting back-story of the Chicago band's decade-plus career. "Well Enough Alone" brings us behind closed doors to hear just what Chevelle means, as they set churning chords and scorched harmonies against the details of Joe Loeffler's sudden departure. Not that their sound suffered without his basslines; Dean Bernardini assumed the position without hesitation, plowing right through the sludgy groove of "The Fad" and the steady, spine-crawling build of "I Get It." As for the band's underground beginnings and fan-snatching live shows, they're both spread across our Next Steps.

In a move that screams, "We're not messing around," 17 grueling days went into Chevelle's gate-crashing debut, 1999's Point #1. Not just any recording session, either; with Steve Albini of Big Black and Shellac behind the boards, Chevelle learned how to harness the power of pure noise and deliver hooks with the subtlety of hail stones (see the chug-a-lug lead of "Open" and sinister dynamics of "Dos"). Such tension-tapping techniques have come in handy every time Chevelle hits the road, whether frontman Pete Loeffler is leading the power trio through a slew of time changes ("SMA") or a brief, laidback break (the ominous overtones of "Grab Thy Hand").

A band of brothers that formed in the mid-'90s — when their youngest member (former bassist Joe Loeffler) was just 14 — Chevelle has spent more than a decade honing their heavyweight sound, a soft/loud switchboard that's in constant danger of being pulled. While the group's three-pronged attack was as gnarly as a 1,000-year-old tree at first, they quickly shifted to an arena-ready sound with Wonder What's Next. An ambitious affair that earned many Tool comparisons, it proved that Chevelle could climb the charts without losing an ounce of credibility, from the barbed balladry of "Closure" to the swirling psychedelia of "The Red." The same goes for every song they've made since, including the caustic choruses of "Another Know It All," the sputtering rhythm section of "Still Running," and husky high notes of "Midnight to Midnight."