Adema - Planets CD Review

It seems that as of late nu-metal has been trying its hardest to claw its way back out of the grave it was laid to rest in more than a few years back. In its crusade to be noticed once again, it has subjected us to recent releases from Trust Company, American Head Charge, and a decidedly nu-metal inspired Soilwork, among many others. Then next week marks the unleashing of Mudvayne’s newest disc. On top of that there’s also Planets from Adema which dropped this week. There doesn’t appear to be any reasoning as to this sudden resurgence, but it is here nonetheless.

If you somehow decide to let yourself be taken in by this nu-metal virus that’s floating around, make sure you don’t end up afflicted with the Adema-strain, a vicious version of nu-metal that will rot your ears out. Even with the addition of a new singer and a slight refinement to their sound, Adema still comes across no better than a second-rate attempt to be a radio friendly nu-metal band. The only reason Adema had any amount of recognition when their first two cds were released was solely because Mark Chavez was Jonathan Davis’ younger brother. Without Mark in the band anymore, maybe Adema could have shed their Korn-lite vibe, but they couldn’t quite do away with it completely.

Planets is quite a bit mellower than previous releases, so much so that a couple of songs have a decidedly Nickelback and 3 Doors Down feel to them. “Tornado”, for example, is an overly blatant rip-off of 3 Doors Down crappy hard rock sound, which is sad simply because Adema are emulating 3 Doors Down… 3 DOORS DOWN! Who, in their right mind, would want to channel such a watered down rock band? The great majority of the rest of this disc (the songs not aping clichéd rock bands) takes on a very somber and downtrodden tone, leaving it to feel very boring, even during some of the better songs.

Yes, there are a couple of decent songs to be found on this disc. The title track isn’t too bad, but it’s not much more than your basic emotional rock tune. Other than the title track, “Barricades in Time” is pretty much the only tolerable track. It fits perfectly into the mellow verse, a little bit heavy bridge, really heavy chorus template, but it’s listenable, which is about the best compliment you can give any of the songs on this disc.

When you take the time to think about it, there really isn’t any reason for this cd to exist, and it’s pretty sad that projects such as this get green-lighted by labels, especially Earache, a label that usually releases decent stuff. Musically, Planets is inferior to most of what is out there and from a sales standpoint, this cd is not going to move a lot of copies, so why is it even on the shelves? Some questions will unfortunately never be answered, and this is probably one of them.