Adestria: Chapters

Six-piece San Diego-based metalcore ensemble Adestria has delivered another one for the pile. In such an incestuous genre, the gene pool must be running low because every trick known to man is here and there's little in the way of originality. The vocals are predictably belted out either at full whack or in melodious splendour over a backdrop of brick wall guitars and hyper-produced-to-the-point-of-sounding-electronically-generated drumming. This is way too calculated to be considered creative. Technically, the musicians are as adept as the genre demands but meeting criteria doesn't connote creativity. The inclusion of processed piano and synth sounds further detracts from the impact of the bland tunes because, as with the drums, they foreground and enhance the plasticity of the album. The meandering guitar lines that go nowhere, the inevitable and endless chugs, the one-dimensional vocals, and the always-to-the-max drumming make for a generally flat aesthetic. Adestria mistake style for substance from the outset and nowhere is this more apparent than the nauseating 'More Than You Know'. The track - one that any studio-manufactured pop band would reject on the grounds of it being vacuous - begins as an awful ballad which, at about the three minute-mark, bursts back into metalcore territory in an attempt to justify its existence. Across the album, there are hooks aplenty but nothing worth catching. Chapters is little more than a tired re-packaging of what's already been done time and time again.

Track Listing:

1. Compromised
2. 1984
3. Whiskey For The Soul
4. The Odyssey
5. Outsiders
6. Defy The Stars
7. More Than You Know
8. The Masquerade
9. This Ship, A Coffin
10. Scarlet Letter

Added: April 1st 2012
Reviewer: Jason Guest
Score:
Related Link: Adestria on Facebook
Hits: 2004
Language: english

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