Defined

North Carolina based metal rock band Adage has a new EP out called, "Defined". With only 5 tracks on this EP the album will play pretty fast, even with the opening track "Anymore" lasting 5 minutes. Even though Adage is a metal rock band their style would allow the songs to be played on the radio. Don't let it fool you with them being a radio metal band, Adage still brings in the hard loud playing to their songs that make them a metal band. Only they are clean metal that a parent don't have to worry about their child repeat something embarrassing in public. 

Here's the thing with ready made radio metal rock, it's ready made radio metal. I don't have many rules when it comes to the way metal songs should be played, but I do have one that is the core of rules, make it metal. That means I want to hear harsh lyrics, I want to feel the energy coming from the songs, and I want to know that this is a song that if played on the radio will have to have some parts cut out. Adage does not give me that kind of song on their EP. Sure they have the metal sound being put into their songs but they don't have the heart of metal in their songs. It's a cleaned up version of metal where I could listen to it with my Mom sitting next to me or even at work and I wouldn't have to worry about feeling embarrassed or get in trouble.

That's what I want in my metal songs, loud, powerful, so much energy that the songs will make me feel it in my bones as I headbang to the songs. Sure they play the songs well and the vocals are good, it's just missing that edge. Even though the songs are played well, I didn't hear anything really wrong with how the instruments where played, but I didn't hear anything that caught my attention. There's no real catchy beats to the songs, the rhythms are nothing that stands out from any of the other radio songs, and they don't have high levels of energy in the songs. It's almost there, but only almost, and it's because these are radio songs, and though they are metal, they are just radio songs. This band has the ability of playing their instruments well, the vocals are sung well, but they didn't make themesleves stand out over all the other bands out there in the world.