When you first start listening to Chevelle's new album, 'Sci-Fi Crimes,' you can't help but notice that the disc, which hits stores Sept. 1, sounds like a slightly toned-down Tool. When asked if he hears that a lot, drummer Sam Loeffler sighed.

"We pretty much get that about every record we do, honestly," the kitman teld Noisecreep. "It's fine. I love Tool, and they're a great band to be compared to. It's just everybody says that about every record, which is weird to me, because I do like Tool, and they don't write radio songs. They're more of a Pink Floyd-type band, with concepts behind their songs and giant verses and super-long bridges ... it's very different from everything. Our songs, I consider them melodic rock radio songs. We're definitely writing more accessible songs than Tool, that's for sure."

'Sci-Fi Crimes' is, Loeffler says, a different record for Chevelle. At least "when you compare it to all the other records we've done and the records being done these days. It's not a perfect record. There's no auto-tune, no samples, none of that. It's just what it is, and I hope it can hold its own against everyone else's perfect records."The use of auto-tune and Pro Tools in modern rock and metal is a disturbing trend for Loeffler, one far too many bands are taking advantage of. But which bands are using auto-tune? He wasn't forthcoming with names, but suggests you "go see a band and if you like their record, see if they can do it right. You'll be able to tell. I'm not picking on them personally, but Fall Out Boy ... when I saw them play live, I was like, 'Holy s---! Is that a different band from the record?' They cannot do it. That's how Pro Tools has ruined the industry. There's really no difference between them and Britney Spears."

Perhaps that's why metalheads can get down with Chevelle and not Fall Out Boy.

"I think it's very strange that we have that metalhead following, but I'm grateful," says Loeffler. "That's what we grew up with, too: metal and a lot of heavier music."

But don't let the name of the disc or the album art fool you. 'Sci-Fi Crimes' isn't an ode to 'The X-Files.' In fact, the title is more an allusion to "people who claim to have seen aliens or have been involved with them in some way." One song on the record, 'Roswell,' was inspired by a story the band came up with "about this woman who has sustained second-degree burns on her hands from the spaceship taking off, because she protects her face with her hands."

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