Adamas: Heavy Thoughts

Claiming to lean heavily on the 80s thrash sound, Italians Adamas seem to find themselves stuck. Stuck in the past, stuck in middle gear and stuck for enough great ideas to make a real impression. Think Megadeth without the anger, or Onslaught without the oomph and you'll understand the arena this quartet are aiming for. However grinding, grating metal was never meant to sound this lumpen or lifeless. "Heavy Thoughts" opens, endemic of the issues the album of the same name suffers, a lifeless riff struggling to make any impact before the croaked vocals from Faithful Father (or Luigi Castellani as his Mum and Dad know him) somehow manage to suck what little excitement there is, clean out of sight. That ex-Maiden man, Blaze Bayley, shows up to duet with the double F merely compounds the problems, the charismatic vocalist dominating his singing partner so thoroughly, you wish he'd just been given the whole song to himself.

A few Italian spoken word section attempt to add atmosphere, but through their sheer length (the hidden section at the album's close is verging on three minutes…) they simply leave you groping for the skip button. "E.T.N.A." and "The Reaper" do offer up something a little more convincing, bassist Gufo (or Alessandro Manini) injecting a funky backline that hints at Suicidal Tendencies, as guitarist Mastro (Federico Fondacci) ups his game. However even here things don't go smoothly, the guitar solos weak and thin, the mid sections slow and plodding. Christian Bartolacci appears for "Morphine", but by this time you're hoping that song title is a promise of the sedation required to see you trough the rest of this sleepy album. While Marco Vitali fails to dig things out a hole on "Pit My Skin".

The Italian metal and rock scene is absolutely fit to bursting with new, talented outfits. However, much though it pains me to say it, Adamas remind of a time when a release from this country (other than prog) almost guaranteed some simplistic pastiche of a US, or UK sound. Heavy Thoughts may not be quite that bad, but neither is it something that comes close to reaching the standard so many bands meet as a bare minimum. These Heavy Thoughts look set to sink without a trace…

Track Listing
1. Heavy Thoughts
2. E.T.N.A.
3. The Reaper
4. In Bond-Age
5. Morphine
6. Chains of Time
7. Wipe-Out
8. Pit My Skin
9. Dare Your Hate

Added: February 22nd 2016
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Adamas online
Hits: 1601
Language: english

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