After having had all of the members save founding member Mark Hunter leave Chimaira in a mass exodus, the band has rather wisely, in my opinion, decided to call it a day. Chimaira were definitely a force to b reckoned with after they had released their self titled album, one of my favourite american heavy metal records of the 2000’s but alas they began their slow decline after their next album Resurrection.

Even though they did have guitar extraodinaire Emil Werstler it seemed that their latest album Crown Of Phantoms was a far cry from what Chimaira used to be, with hardly anything remaining of their previous sound. It seems to be happening more and more these days with the disbanding of God Forbid as well as the recently announced permanent hiatus of Shadows Fall, perhaps it may be to do with the fact that simply their time is up, like grunge and nu-metal. They have had their fun in the 90’s but now, apart from die hard fans no one really cares. It will be sad to see Chimaira officially go, but to be honest they went a long time ago, there is only so much of the original band you can salvage when you have such common line up changes. Oh well, I’m sure they will do a reunion tour at some point!

R.I.P. Chimaira