| Adema - Adema |
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| Music Disc Reviews Audio CD | ||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Dan MacIntosh | ||||||||||||||||||
| Tuesday, 21 August 2001 | ||||||||||||||||||
If you’re expecting Adema’s self-titled album to add up to some sort of a cohesive mission statement, then prepare yourself to be disappointed. Singer Mark Chavez complains one moment (within the song "Everyone") that, "All I know is that life is a struggle." Later, with "The Way You Like It," he whines, "I miss the pain and torment that you put me through." Granted, he’s being sarcastic with this last remark -- or at least one hopes such is the case. But, as with the boy who cried wolf, the listener can never quite differentiate real pain from artistically exaggerated pain so intrinsic to this new breed of martyr rock. Instead of feeling any pity, the listener just wants Chavez’s family to practice more tough love with the little brat. It’s a pity Chavez is such a sorry character, because this band has plenty of musical firepower. "Freaking Out" borrows its cadence from rap, while adding a runaway train guitar riff and inserting just the right amount of minimal keyboard counter melody. It rocks with the same kind of propulsive groove that separates P.O.D. from all the rest of the rock ‘n mope crowd. There’s nothing wrong with crying wolf when there is, in fact, a real wolf to fear. When bands like Korn exorcise personal demons through their music, you at least know their demons are more menacing than mere childhood nightmares. But when Chavez whimpers, "You disrespected my pride" to bite back at a girl who broke his heart, you’re half-tempted to fetch this sobbing baby a glass of water and send him straight to bed. Guitarists Tim Fluckey and Mike Ransom fill these tracks with a whirlpool of wonderful noise, and bass player Dave DeRoo and drummer Kris Kohls keep this somber pity pool from becoming too stagnant. Tobias Miller and Bill Appleberry produced this album with plenty of crisp rock power, which raises Adema above much of the other current primordial sludge merchants who are fighting it out to pass themselves off as cutting-edge hard rock. This album is like a collection of baby steps in a man’s world. It speaks with the voice of a man, but it has the limited vocabulary of a little boy. It may be appropriate for the youngsters, but grownups would be wise to pass it over. Like this article? Bookmark and share with any of the sites below.        |
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