How About That Thing?

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter who you are, or how good at a thing you are. Rather, it’s who you know, or who you’re father is. Or in the case of today’s subject, who your half-brother is. Enter Adema.

It sounds like I’m ragging on them for having a vocalist who was related to the vocalist of Korn, and that ultimately being the ONLY reason they even had a shot at the mainstream in the first place. Probably because I am. That was literally Adema’s claim to fame when they first showed up on the scene. Beyond that one detail… Well, how do you feel about nu-metal? Because that might impact your enjoyment to one degree or another.

Personally, I don’t hate nu-metal. I like some bands in the subgenre better than others, sure, but I don’t hate it as a whole. It’s not perfect, but I’d definitely take it over the ukulele playing hipster douches who came afterward.

That being said… Yeah, my time with Adema ended a long time ago. While I wouldn’t say they’re terrible, I’m not about to say they’re all that great, either. In fact, part of me wonders what it was I ever saw in the band in the first place.

So this week, I made it a point to revisit those first couple of albums, and maybe figure it out for myself.

Starting with their self-titled debut.

FUN FACT: nu-metal was, and still is, filled to the brim with misspelled names. Adema, Korn, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit… Hell, the current generation isn’t fairing any better with bands like Ded.

Listening to this album for the first time in years, it’s safe to say that this is definitely a product of its time in just about every way. Simple yet heavy hitting guitar parts that even a beginner guitarist could play, a hip hop inspired beat to some songs, and a vocalist who sounds a bit on the nasally side of things. While Adema’s then vocalist, Mark Chavez, wasn’t NEARLY AS bad as, say, the vocalist for Taproot, or Puddle of Mud, there’s definitely a healthy dose of nose-vocals in this band’s early years.

Honestly, I don’t hate most of the track list on this album. “Freaking Out” sounds like a teenage hissy fit, and “The Way You Like it” has this definite vibe of “we wrote this one for the radio” about it, but a lot of the other tracks aren’t without their charm. Dare I say, the little cluster of music that starts with “Do What You Want to Do”, and ends with “Speculum” is probably the best chunk of audio these guys have put out. Only to then run head first into “Drowning”, which… Yeah, I think we might be trying a little too hard here, guys.

Overall, it’s not the worst album I’ve ever come back to in adulthood. At times, I can definitely see why I was willing to give these guys a chance. But then there are other times where I’m genuinely astounded that I bought this album.

But hey, some bands need time to grow and to figure stuff out. Now that the bugs are worked out, there’s nowhere to go but up. Right?

Well, 2002 didn’t exactly give me a lot of confidence when they decided to give the world “Insomniac’s Dream”.

Yeah, there were times when EPs were a thing. Seven tracks long, and only two of them were even remotely worth the money.

The first being “Immortal”: a song that was intended to be the theme song for Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, and possibly for the franchise as a whole from that day forward. I like it… But it’s literally the only song I liked off of this EP.

Also included was a song called “Nutshell”, which I later on found out was a cover of an Alice in Chains song I wasn’t familiar with originally. Yeah, the original is definitely better, as is often the case.

The rest of the album includes a live performance of “Do What You Want to Do”, unnecessary remixes of “Freaking out” and “The Way You Like it” (the worst songs on the previous album), a song that sounds like a “Do What You Want to Do” cradle at best, and “Giving In”. Not a remix, not a live performance, not an acoustic version, just the exact same song ver batem from the previous album.

I’m sure some hardcores appreciated this album, but outside of “Immortal”, I felt like I’d wasted ten bucks.

And then came “Unstable”

Not going to lie, this might have been the album that killed my fandom dead. Which is especially tragic, because I remember reading Chavez was working with a vocal coach in order to improve his singing for this one.

Well, his singing voice may be somewhat better, but his lyric writing took a bit of a hit. Verses in songs like “Ripped the Heart Out in Me”, and “Let Go” are pretty bad, and other songs tend to have a less-than-subtle approach to getting their message across as well. IE, “Abusive”, and “Promises”, just to name a few.

You go into a nu-metal act like Adema, knowing not to expect Shakespear, but frankly, expecting Otep Shamaya might even be asking a bit much.

I will give the band credit for sticking to their sound. Though refined in some ways, it still sounds like an Adema album. Given that most bands in 2003 were abandoning the nu-metal sound the moment they got popular enough to not need it (IE, Disturbed, Saliva, Papa Roach, etc.), it takes guts to stand your ground on something that was waning in popularity. Although it might have been the deathblow for a lot of people like myself in the process.

In the end, I didn’t follow the band past this album. I learned decades later that Mark Chavez and Mike Ransom eventually got kicked out of the band shortly after “Unstable”, though the reason WHY tends to depend on who you talk to. I tried listening to “Planets”, but honestly, the nicest thing I could say about that album is that it sounded like everything else that was coming out at the time. And not in a good way, either.

Again, it sounds like I’m ragging on this band and these albums… And again, that’s probably because I am. But at the same time, I can’t deny that, despite their flaws, they were in pretty heavy rotation in my music collection. More so the self-titled album than anything else, but I still remember giving “Unstable” a chance while playing The Sims: Bustin’ Out. I’ll always have warm fuzzy nostalgia for even the worst of that era of music… But you’ll understand if, upon relisten, I’m not in all that big of a hurry to relocate some physical copies.