There’s a certain electricity in the air when underground craftsmen circle back to reclaim their legacy — and when CHAKA steps into the light once more with the force of thunder and flame, you know something seismic is about to erupt. At the center of this controlled chaos stands Mark Sokoll, bassist, vocalist, and the relentless creative engine behind CHAKA, whose footprint has left deep, uncompromising imprints across the New York City underground metal and punk scenes since 1986. From the gritty days of Terminal Confusion (NYHC) to bruising stints in Leeway, Hypoxia, and Darkside NYC, Sokoll has always operated where power meets purpose. But with CHAKA, what once began as a side-project now feels like prophecy fulfilled — a trio whose sound is at once primordial and precise, brutal yet poetic, drawing on the caveman cadence of Celtic Frost, the venomous sludge of Venom, and the streetwise fury of Cro-Mags. Their next chapter? An explosive new record titled ‘Amplifying the Past’, which promises not just to echo their history, but to ignite it with incandescent force.
And make no mistake: this is not just another album. This is a reckoning. This is a reawakening of spirit through steel and sweat. ‘Amplifying the Past’ is not just music; it’s mythology recharged. It’s an incantation of ancestral power rewritten through distortion pedals, drum skins, and the growl of decades-long defiance. When you press play on any of CHAKA’s previous recordings, the first sensation is impact. The second is awe. You feel the ground quake under Mike Caldarella’s cyclonic drumming, the sky rupture with Ty Canon’s blistering leads, and your ribs rattle under Mark Sokoll’s subwoofer-splitting bass. They are a three-headed beast that needs no adornment — no filler, no frills, just raw, unforgiving sound that commands your attention.
And yet, for all the abrasion, there’s clarity — a rare and thrilling balance. Mark Sokoll’s vocals cut through the mix like rusted blades sharpened by truth: snarling, towering, always intelligible. His voice doesn’t just shout — it communicates, delivering narratives packed with intellect, intensity, and primal imagery. The lyrics are not just scrawled on pages; they are etched into stone tablets carried through sonic warfare.
Two standout tracks from their classic arsenal — “Musth” and “Mister Brink” — don’t just set the tone for the upcoming Amplifying the Past, they are the smoldering embers of a musical volcano waiting to erupt. And if these offerings are the prelude, the full album threatens to be the eruption itself — a furious storm of riff, rhythm, and revelation. Every listen feels like standing too close to the speaker at the end of the world.
If a song could be described as a fossilized war cry from the Pleistocene, “Musth” would be it. A feral, thundering journey into the animalistic rituals of dominance and decay, the song is both mythic and molecular — prehistoric in subject matter, modern in its precision. With Ty Canon handling all guitars and bass, Caldarella on drums, and Sokoll wielding vocals like a weapon, the trio conjures a swirling storm of chaos and control. The lyrics read like an academic thesis on hierarchy filtered through blood and bone: “Ascendancy, tyranny, hegemony, supremacy” — these aren’t just words, they’re carved into the ribcage of this track. This isn’t merely metaphor. This is evolutionary aggression.
And yet, it’s the narrative structure that sets “Musth” apart: the protagonist both hunter and hunted, a challenger driven by youth and bloodlust, threatening to unseat the alpha in a world where only one law reigns: sovereignty or bust. We experience the shift in the herd’s energy through scent, submission, and the gut-clenching tension of a coup about to erupt. This is not a song — it’s a battle cry in audio form, an invocation of the ancient truth that power is not inherited, but taken. The track balances an intense, unrelenting groove with thunderous accents that suggest tectonic movement, and by the end, you don’t just hear the song — you survive it.
Every bass note feels like a footstep from a beast towering over you. Every beat of the drums cracks the bedrock beneath your feet. Every guitar line slices through the dense fog of forgotten eras. “Musth” is primal in every possible sense, a triumph of thematic coherence and sonic destruction. Then there is “Mister Brink”, and everything shifts. Where “Musth” is primal brutality, “Mister Brink” is psychological horror. Crafted as a Halloween tribute, it’s a slow-burning descent into the abyss — a metal requiem whispered by shadows.
Here, CHAKA expands their sonic arsenal: Ty Canon swaps frets for synths and pipe organ, Dara O’Connell introduces a haunted violin line that floats like mist through graveyards, and Sokoll delivers a vocal performance steeped in bile and theater. Caldarella’s drumming, restrained but ritualistic, keeps the tension coiled like a serpent in a mausoleum. Lyrically, “Mister Brink” is a masterpiece of gothic storytelling. The titular figure — a grim amalgam of death, dread, and metaphysical rot — is both the villain of your nightmares and the host of your final hour. Described with grotesque beauty (“his blood is black, his bones are cracked, his saliva corrodes”), Mister Brink isn’t just death personified — he’s death intellectualized, inviting listeners to sip madness by the goblet.
There’s a Kafkaesque brilliance to the lyrics’ suggestion of acceptance — “have a drink with Mr. Blink; get acquainted intimately” — an invitation to face the void not with fear, but with knowing inevitability. The orchestration reflects this descent, building in haunted elegance until the final notes drip with mournful resonance. The final stanza’s imagery — the River Styx, the eternal Halloween — cements the song’s place as not just a seasonal track, but a metal hymn to mortality itself. It captures that eerie thrill of horror’s beauty, like a candle flickering on a crypt wall. It’s a twisted lullaby for the damned, a reflection of every nightmare you’ve half-remembered in the dead of night. “Mister Brink” doesn’t just scare — it seduces.
With ‘Amplifying the Past’, CHAKA will be doing far more than revisiting their earlier themes. They’ll be reconstructing their mythology — amplifying the echoes of decades spent in the trenches of underground metal into something towering, cinematic, and mythologically heavy. It’s not nostalgia. It’s reincarnation. And it’s relentless.
While CHAKA’s production remains raw and organic, there’s a distinct sense of maturity in how each of their tracks is sculpted. Every member pushes the envelope of their respective instruments without losing the collective momentum. You feel the experience in every bar — over three decades of hard-earned skill and uncompromising identity. The attention to detail, both musically and thematically, shows a band at the height of their conceptual powers.
‘Amplifying the Past’ promises to take listeners through epochs of sound: from the volcanic eruptions of ancestral memory to the specters of personal demons. Expect dynamic shifts, atmosphere-rich interludes, bone-splintering breakdowns, and lyrical dissections that walk the tightrope between the metaphysical and the visceral.
It will be an album shaped by callouses, not compromise. A war cry for those who still believe in albums as works of art — holistic, cohesive, and unyieldingly sincere. It’s a torch passed from the ancestors of metal to a band prepared to wield it like a weapon. There’s a rare blend of storytelling, savagery, myth, and method that CHAKA brings to the fore.
If “Musth” and “Mister Brink” are any indication, ‘Amplifying the Past’ will not only stand alongside the genre’s greats — it may very well cast a shadow over them. It’s a work born of memory but aimed at the future, one boot planted in the blood-soaked soil of history, the other crashing down with glorious defiance. CHAKA isn’t just amplifying the past — they’re weaponizing it!
OFFICIAL LINKS:
Website: www.chakametalband.com
Bandcamp: https://chaka2.bandcamp.com/track/musth
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/chaka/1495816004
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0phJ6pRVr7nDAMcAeRQq4K?si=JGC1aeyDQJCijhi0waz1LA
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5L4vJciEcJQqBT6BDp94jQ
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chakametalband/
Amazon Music: https://www.amazon.com/Neanderthal-Tales-Chaka/dp/B08455LZ94
