Now Playing on the Groove Machine: Finding Beauty in Chaos

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While Beauty in Chaos is considered a supergroup of sorts, it’s more of a project. A project of Michael Ciravolo, former lead guitarist of Human Drama, and President of Guitar Research for Schecter Guitars. In other words, he knows a lot of people, and they appear as guests, doing vocals and playing their various instruments alongside Ciravolo and BIC producer Michael Rozon. Finding Beauty in Chaos is the group’s first album, and is chock full of guests. So chock full that it’s a double LP, one clear dark-red vinyl, one solid white marble. So who’s on this fine debut? “Road to Rosario” features Gene Loves Jezebel’s Michael Aston on vocals, which gives the tune a solid GLJ feel. “A Man of Faith,” with vocals by The Mission’s Wayne Hussey and some tasty bass from The Cure’s Simon Gallup, would have made a solid track on a Mission album, but fits right in on this album. And the hard-rocking cover of T-Rex’s “20th Century Boy” has Ministry’s Al Jourgenson on lead vocal duties. Lest you think this is an “all-alternative” album, and there are lots of alternative artists on here (Solo vocalists Ashton Nyte, and Evi Vine, appear, as does former Caterwaul [“The Sheep is a Wolf”] singer Betsy Martin, and Human Drama vocalist Johnny Indovina all show up with contributions,) Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander does the fun and dreamy “Drifting Away,” with backup vocals from former Van Halen/current Sammy Hagar bassist Michael Anthony. For me, the standout is the heavy, rocking, Hurricane Katrina (Ciravolo hails from New Orleans and had family affected/lost in the deadly storm) tune, “Un-Natural Disaster.” It’s an all-star effort on its own, with Kings X bassist/vocalist dUG Pinnick, Zakk Wylde on lead guitar, Ice-T with a mid-tune rap, and former Offspring drummer Pete Parada. It is, frankly, an angry tune, different from the rest of the album, yet not out of place, tying the entire album together. A promising debut for a nice, growing catalogue of indie music. “Un-Natural Disaster” video below: