Album Review "Omertà" by Adrenaline Mob

I find myself getting back into heavy metal. I had long sworn off the genre because to many bands were coming out like Korn and Meshuggah. I just really can't find myself enjoying the djent metal bands. On this blog I'm not going to separate the metal subgenres too much because I find that to be exhausting. Yes there are different kinds of metal and yes there will always be a new corner of the metal world, but I'm just don't have the time to pigeonhole things that extensively.

This brings me to the full length debut release by Adrenaline Mob. For some reason I had it in my head that this was their third album, but I was wrong. Upon listening to this album a few times, I am glad to find out that this was their debut release. I'm not going to say this is a flat out bad record, but this group shows its shortcomings a little more clearly than I would like over the course of the nearly fifty minutes of Omertà.

 From the moment the opening single gets started, this album feels familiar. As the album plays, each time I get the feeling that I've heard this sound before. The guitars have the set it and forget it sound. There is no real difference from beginning to end in terms of them. No adjustments were made during the entire recording process. They certainly don't have a bad sound, but some variance between songs is always nice. I would venture that I was listening to, for the most part guitars plugged straight into the amps.

The drumming was a nice mixture of double bass and pounding toms all the way through. This is just a great example of how to be a rocking metal drummer. Mike Portnoy really just nailed it all of the way through. He was the perfect backbone to this album. I can say nothing bad about him, except maybe that sound. The drum sound could have been a bit fuller and more lively.

The vocals were just okay. I suppose on a speed metal album what more do I really need? As long as it isn't terrible, I suppose I have very little to complain about. I did have some bones to pick with the lyrics though. The song topics ranged from songs like "Psychosane" which were about being a really strong person to things like "Feeling Me," which felt like a song written to be played during the middle of a set. All in all, I found the lyrics lacking in maturity and depth. When metal bands like Metallica started singing about more than fighting the devil and having sex, the bar was raised. Adrenaline Mob needs to jump over the current bar.

All in all, this was definitely a debut album in the truest sense of the word. The more I listened to this album, the more I heard Metallica's ...And Justice For All in terms of the mix, the sound, and the tracklisting. During the entire disc I heard Adrenaline Mob's influence much more clearly than I heard them. There is some definite potential here. Consider the difference between the first to Pantera records and I wouldn't say that kind of upswing is out of reach here.

Genre: Metal
Year: 2012
Run time: 49:38

Track list
1. "Undaunted"
2. "Psychosane"
3. "Indifferent"
4. "All on the Line"
5. "Hit the Wall"
6. "Feelin' Me"
7. "Come Undone" (Duran Duran cover ft. Lzzy Hale of Halestorm)
8. "Believe Me"
9. "Down to the Floor"
10. "Angel Sky"
11. "Freight Train"