A band that came together due to their shared love of Metallica, Tool, Pantera and Slipknot, Texas hard rockers Adakain set out to do their home state proud on this first album of self-described “heavy music that is unconventional yet recognizable.”
First of all, let me just state that it's nice to see a band not only putting some effort into eye-catching cover art but also managing to come up with a band name that isn't either A) an obscure synonym for destruction that no one has spoken, or B) an existing band name, pluralized. Folks, if you can't come up with a band name that isn't simply adding the letter 'S' to a previous, superior band to yours, the likelihood of you being able to pen a song we'll want to hear is quite dim.
But I digress.
Never Coming Home immediately opens up into anthemic, powerful, and technically proficient guitar playing, where thundering riffs put memorable exclamation points on songs like the opener “All Goes To Hell,” as well as deeper tracks like “We Crawl” or the darker “Once Is Enough.”
At the extremes of the band's sound are the metallic “Don't Look Down,” which has an aggressiveness that runs parallel to today's best metal outfits, and the pop moments of “Don't Try,” where a more melodic approach could garner the band some FM attention. Similarly, the band adopt both an '80s metal approach with the powerful ballad “Never Coming Home,” but they also keep a foot in the modern post-hardcore and industrial world with the ominous “Resistance” or my personal favorite selection, the pulsating “Once Is Enough.”
While I wouldn't say that Adakain hit it out of the park on this first rip to the plate, it is a solid stand up double. True to their philosophy, there's a familiarity amid the gritty rhythm section and raw vocals that brings to mind the heavy hitters of the genre (Linkin Park, Trapt), but it's also very clear that Adakain are carving out a path entirely their own.