ALDOSIVI | Author: Dave Hodges
Artist: Adamanthium
Album: Adamanthium
Label: Independent
South Americans have never been strangers to heavy metal, and over the last few decades, some of their countries have borne scenes that rival the best of those in North America and Europe. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to hear Adamanthium, a newer Argentine band, doing their best to keep that old school heavy metal sound alive. Their traditional influences are immediately recognisable, mostly in tone and overall execution, as opposed to specific, easily traceable riffs. In fact, their sound would have fit nicely amidst a good number of NWOBHM bands if it weren’t for the Spanish lyrics.
They seem to favour slower-tempo stuff, and they really exploit the additional opportunities that come with slower riffs, specifically those tempo changes and other discontinuities that are always more easily emphasised in slower pieces. They also make use of suspense more than most heavy metal bands; they love to draw out an unresolved riff or phrase several times to get the most punch out of the resolution at the end. Again, this is something more easily accomplished when you aren’t focused on playing the fastest and most furious stuff on the block.
The instrumentation is rich in melody from the beginning to the end. You can expect to hear lots of guitar arpeggios in the slower sections, and during the lead guitar solos there is some seriously compelling composition in there that provides a lot more depth than you would normally associate with heavy metal. But it’s the lead vocals where the melodic nature of the music stands out the most to me. The vocalist has a soaring and powerful voice that really shines during those long notes and juxtaposes perfectly with the rhythm guitars. His tone is a little different from what you might expect though, and I could understand that maybe it isn’t for everybody.
At just six songs in length, the release was issued as an EP, but it’s actually a little more than a half an hour long, which puts it in good company with plenty of LPs from the eighties. Still, the songs are long and hover around six minutes apiece. Normally, I would balk at more than a couple songs on an album being that long. Usually when songs are that long, it’s the band rehashing the same riffs from the beginning over and over again and this results in an album that gets tired quickly. This isn’t the case here at all. The songs are not bloated from repeating the same riffs over and over again, and there is a constant variety keeps each song fresh and engaging.
There are no bad tracks here, but if you want to get a taste of their sound, check out the closing track, “Hogar de Valientes” and I think you’ll find that this release is well worth your time to check out.
Score: 8.5/10
2016-10-31 17:20:33
|
|
