Neshamah
Communicating In Heartbeats
3.8
There’s great metalcore (Hamartia, early Poison the Well and Unearth, Misery Signals, Shai Hulud), there’s solid metalcore (At All Cost, Inked in Blood, Life in Your Way, Last Perfection, The Crashing Falcon, etc.) then there’s is bad metalcore; and South Africa’s female fronted Christian outfit (that’s just a bad combination right there) Neshamah, is bad metalcore folks.
From the label (that actually went out and licensed this from South Africa’s Witchdoctor Records) that is the apparent home of bad metalcore (with the exception of Foreknown), Neshamah, as if you couldn’t tell from their moniker (Nehemiah, Nehemah, Nothura, Nephesh, Naptha, Nientara and Neaera were taken) and album title and cover and track listing (“Dying Thoughts of a Martyr”, “Sweet Goodnight”, “You Got a Deathwish Baby” “Temporary Satisfaction of Desire”) is one giant cliché ridden boil of metalcore contrivances. And its not just that’s its horrifically unoriginal, I like metalcore, so I can’t complain about originality, it’s just that Neshamah are soooo freaking obvious about their complete lack of unique ideas, it only serves to highlight their average musical skills.
With the expected but still lifeless mix of vaguely tech squealing spastics, clean commercial elements, dual European harmonies and the odd breakdown laced with pained screams and growls; there’s not one ounce of individuality in this thing. Normally I can look past lack of creativity if there is some solid memorable song writing, but in Neshemah’s case, there really isn’t anything redeeming about any of the songs to make you forget how contrived they are.
The early classical intro for “Declaration” hints at something decent, but never fulfils the intros potential and just maybe “Not From this Soil”, could pass for a solid track, but it’s so late in the teeming mess of mediocrity that precedes it, you’ll be lucky to make it that far (unfortunately, I as a reviewer have to give this thing several listens all the way through…). Then as if to force home how bad they are, that one highlight is destroyed by “Restoration of a Saint” and the sudden use of a Lemmy Kilminster impersonator for a jarring early vocal tangent.
At press time, this band had thankfully called it quits serving as sweet justice for Blood & Ink licensing this pile of rubbish. What’s next? Child fronted tribal metalcore from Uganda? Heck, that might be better than this.
