martindavey87 Adema’s 2001 self-titled debut was released at a time when nu metal was one of the biggest musical genres in the world. However, it was also short-lived, and with only minor mainstream success, the band was unable to make a big enough splash to help carry them through the subgenres demise. And so by 2003, musical trends have already shifted, and the Californian five-piece would get one final chance to either release an album that’ll see them transcend the dying fad, or forever remain one of “those bands” that were good “back in the day”.

And sadly, despite a marked improvement in writing and more confident performances, ‘Unstable’ just wasn’t good enough.

Displaying a nice mixture of heavy, groove-laden and energetic tracks, with some melodic, sentimental and emotional songs, ‘Unstable’ shows a band that has really improved and matured since their last outing. Vocalist Mark Chavez (who was originally only noteworthy for being half-brother of Korn main man Jonathan Davis) has proven himself a competent frontman, and while the instrumentation is fairly straightforward, the band have become adept at using multiple layers of simple melodies to accentuate a warmth in their sound.

But with that said, there’s still only a handful of notable tracks here. ‘Unstable’, ‘So Fortunate’, ‘Co-Dependent’ and ‘Promises’ are all pretty amazing to be honest, and definitely shows a band who certainly had the potential, but sadly never lived up to it. ‘Stand Up’, ‘Blame Me’ and ‘Let Go’ are also fairly decent, but nothing worth getting overly excited about.

Much like its predecessor, ‘Unstable’ does have some moments of absolute genius, but sadly most of it gets lost amongst an abundance of fairly average songs. It’s a good album, but in 2003, with nu metal on its last legs, “good” isn’t good enough, and while it’s certainly worth a listen or two, it’d ensure that Adema will forever be nothing more than another nu metal nostalgia band.