Adestria is a six-piece metalcore band from San Diego, California. Their follow-up to their debut EP, Oh, the Places You’ll Go, and first full-length album, Chapters, is set to be released on March 27th via Razor and Tie Records.
Adestria’s previous effort, Oh, the Places You’ll Go, reminded me of Motionless in White. Upon first listening to Chapters, I noticed that Adestria has achieved a more distinct sound and no longer sound incredibly similar to Motionless in White. Some of the similarities remain, but the fact that they have started molding their own sound is commendable.
While Chapters is, by and large, enjoyable and Adestria now sounds less like Motionless in White, the music could still stand to be more original. Chapters is pretty derivative and slightly generic. It sounds like quite a few other metalcore/post-hardcore bands in the scene today. This does not go to say, however, that it is a bad album. It is done well and many fans of the genre will undoubtedly enjoy it quite a bit.
The best aspect of Adestria’s newest album is the clean vocals, as delivered by Matt Anderson. They sound a lot like the clean vocals that were employed by the now defunct New Jersey metalcore outfit known as Fall to the Queen. This is, in my opinion a huge plus, seeing as how FttQ is no more. One track where the clean vocals really shine, and my personal favorite track on the album, is Outsiders. The whole song, but the chorus in particular, really showcase what Anderson is capable of.
The drums and guitars are essentially just standard metalcore, but they’re calculated and delivered with precision. The songs are generally well-arranged and Adestria does a better job of composition than some of their contemporaries. There are some synth passages occasionally thrown in for good measure. It’s worth mentioning that these synth passages are not incredibly over-bearing and are fused into the overall structure of the song as opposed to being very blatant and somewhat obnoxious (I’m looking at you, Asking Alexandria).
As a whole, I enjoyed Chapters quite a bit and I could see myself listening to it again in the future. While having to compete with a plethora of other metalcore/post-hardcore bands, Adestria has managed to avoid being labelled as a “scene” band, as far as I can tell, which gives them an advantage over their contemporaries. If Adestria puts just a little bit more effort into originality, they could be on to something.
