the indie lumberjack.

What a way to start February.

Other than the incredible amount of snow that Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and pretty much all of south-eastern Virginia got [there were 7 inches of snow at Virginia Wesleyan], the month looked like it was going to be a little boring.

But fear not music lovers, it was announced yesterday that Chiodos is returning to the studio this month…

So basically when I heard this, I pee’d a little from my level of excitement.

A blessing and a curse.

This was possibly the most exciting thing I’d heard in a while [except for the previously mentioned snow]. Chiodos hasn’t released a new full length album since 2007 [Bone Palace Ballet], which was a wonderful album by no stretch of the imagination. Prior to that was their 2005 release of All’s Well That Ends Well [which has the song "There's No Penguins In Alaska"...which is perfect].

So naturally, if you’re a fan of Chiodos and their work, you’d be excited to hear about them releasing a new album after three years of nothing…right?

Oh wait, Craig Owens is gone.

A bit about Craig Owens.

Craig Owens was the lead singer of Chiodos for about eight years. He was also in The Sounds of Animals Fighting [I'm not sure if I like them] and a band called Isles and Glaciers [which I'm about to look up].

So what does that mean??

This presents what I like to call: The John Elway Paradox.

The John Elway Paradox is what happens when the face/leader of an organizations leaves and you are left with a hollow shell of what used to be an incredibly powerful organization [see: Tennessee Titans post-McNair & George, Denver Broncos post-Elway & Sharpe, and Mayday Parade post-Jason Lancaster].

Now I understand that you can’t legitimately base the quality of an entire team/band/organization due to the efforts of one or two people…but sometimes that is all you can do.

Lets take a look at Mayday Parade as an example.

This will be a look at the band with Lancaster and without Lancaster. It is arguable that Lancaster had little to no presence on A Lesson In Romantics but I find it hard to believe since he left the band after the album was recorded in the studio.

Anyway.

If you listen to any song from A Lesson In Romantics, there is something there that you can’t quite explain [I like to call it passion] but when you listen to Anywhere But Here, which is a good album in it’s own right, but it lacks something that the other albums [A Lesson In Romantics and the EP Tales Told By Dead Friends] had.

I said all that to say this.

After John Elway left the Broncos, they sucked…for a few years. After Steve McNair left the Titans, they sucked…for a few years. After Jason Lancaster left Mayday Parade, they weren’t as good…which will change.

The thing about good organizations is that even after the loss of a frontman or a spokesperson or a touchdown earning machine..they recover.

Back to Chiodos.

So after taking the scenic route in this blog post, I finally arrived at the main point I was attempting to make, that being…

Yes, Craig Owens is no longer a member of Chiodos and yes, their next album might not sound the same since he was, in a lot of opinions, “the face” of Chiodos, it will be okay because their new lead singer could be awesome.

There has been no mention of who the new lead singer is, just like there is no potential release date for the new album, although I’m going to ballpark it around…October or November of this year. They also have a new drummer, by the way. His name is Tanner Wayne and he is the drummer from Scary Kids Scaring Kids.

That’s about all guys…I’m nervous about this album but I will remain nervously optimistic.

Thanks for tuning in.

Cody