Adora
Safeguard The Helpless
4.9
Synopsis:
The reason everyone hates Christian metalcore...
Review:
It’s a shame Southern California’s Adora had to come along and ruin the metalcore buzz that the likes of Ligeia, Dead to Fall and label mates The Hope of Change gave me. Adora displays everything that makes metalcore so disliked among metalheads, and it’s not that Euro-core melody, brusque breakdowns, dual vocals and Christian themes are necessarily bad, Ligeia pulls it off perfectly, it’s just that Adora do all of them with such mediocrity and lack of character, they sound like they’ve just been spewed forth by some sort of Christian metalcore meat grinder.
Add to the fact that the production on this album is piss poor and it tops off the whole affair with a foul air of complete redundance, a shame considering the label had me very impressed with The Hope of Change. Honestly there’s not a single defining moment on this album that I haven't heard before; every riff, scream and structure is culled from some other second generation metalcore act. And folks - I like metalcore. Every metalcore cliche is present in spades and done with little flair or character; galloping dual melodies (“Era of Destruction”), burly grooves (“Eternal Warfare”, “Crown of Thorns”), interludes (“The Vanguard”), clean skyward choruses (“Safeguard the Helpless pts.1 and 2"). Again, not that those elements are a bad thing, they just aren’t done very well at all. Then there is just some sloppy musicianship, mainly in the percussive department, for example “Everything I Despise” and “Betrayed” show some glaring percussive missteps from Martin Sanchez.
The end result of all the above elements makes for a high school band sounding effort from a band whose musical skill isn’t quite on par with their religious conviction. Adora could learn a lesson or two from The Showdown on how to do Christian metalcore right.
