Wonder What’s Next by Chevelle

Wonder What's Next, Chevelle's second album, arrived on Epic in 2002 and turned a family band from Grayslake, Illinois, into a main-stage act. This was the Loeffler brothers all the way down: Pete on guitar and lead vocals, Sam on drums and Joe on bass and backing vocals. Their debut, Point #1, had come out on a small label called Squint Entertainment; this time Garth Richardson was behind the board, and he gave them a sound built like a steel girder.

It's alternative metal with the fat trimmed off. The riffs lurch, lock and drop like a trapdoor, Sam hits like he's driving fence posts, and Pete slides from a tense, near-whispered croon to a full-throated roar in the space of a bar. Chevelle keep their hooks sharp and their mood grim, and the tension never lets up. "The Red", with its slow-building menace and detonating chorus, was the calling card, and "Send the Pain Below" and "Closure" followed it out as singles.

It debuted at No. 14 on the Billboard 200, went on to double platinum in the US and landed the band high-profile tour slots, the main stage of Ozzfest 2003 among them. It was their breakthrough, and it's still the biggest record they've made.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.