Time Signature Caught in the middle...

Genre: gothic metal / nu metal

The blend of pop and metal is not a new thing, and it is not necessarily a bad thing either, and acts like Engel, Amaranthe and, to some extent, Evanescence, have made some pretty good pop-infused metal releases, in my opinion. But it can also go terribly wrong as with Dead By April whose music, I must say, I cannot stand. Nemesea's goth-tinted "The Quiet Resistance" is another addition to the corpus of modern pop metal and, while nowhere near as disastrous as many other releases in the same genre, it does not impress me as much as the latest releases by Amaranthe or Engel did.

Good things first, I really like Manda Ophius' voice, especially when she belts out the powerful and catchy vocals of which there are so many on this release (I definitely prefer her vocals to the male vocals that also pop up every now and then on the album), and I also quite appreciate the overall catchiness of the album in general. While the rhythm guitar is often limited to simple power chord progressions and simple, but effective, riffage, it works in relation to the overall sound of the album and its formulaic nature. Even some of the pop elements appeal to me, especially those that have the same sort of atmosphere to them as dark pop acts like Depeche Mode. So, yes, there are definitely a lot of things to appreciate on this album, and the overall atmosphere dark and haunting, which I consider a positive attribute.

That being said, the album does not strike me as being terribly original and, although this is not a problem as such, there are many stock nu metal elements on it, such as a scratching DJ in tracks like 'Say' and 'It's Over' (no rap, though), which can be somewhat of a turn-off to some. Some of the vocal melodies also sound very inspired by the likes of Nickelback and Evanescence. Also, while some of the pop elements are appealing to me, most of them strike me as being very cheesy, the most unforgivable thing being the use of vocoder effects in 'It's Over' which is something I associate with the contentless and uninteresting, talentless and mindnumbing commercial pop music that is so popular among the identity-less and mindless masses these days (let's face it, only Cynic could get away with using vocoders in rock music).

So, there definitely are some quality aspects to this release (especially the vocals), and although I do not really like its pop side, I am sure that fans of nu metal, gothic metal and modern pop metal will really enjoy listening to "The Quiet Resistance".

(review originally posted at seaoftranquility.com)