Aethere – “Adrift” [Album Review]

Aethere’s brand of technical, progressive death metal is enjoyable but relatively uninspired. Adrift is fast, heavy and technically great, but it doesn’t do much new for the metal scene – you’ve likely heard very similar stuff before. It’s good, but not exciting.

If there’s anything that sets Adrift apart from other death metal records, it is probably the bass. Evan Yoshino’s work in this department is excellent, and a step above many other metal bands where the bass is happy enough to trundle along in the background. In Adrift, the bass guitar receives the same billing as the electric guitar. It’s nice to hear the odd bass lick here and there in a death metal record, it brings the best of the heaviness out of the band, in tracks such as the excellent “Sleep” and “Bloom”.

The track names suggest a band with a sound akin to something like Slipknot, and at times, the music can be fairly similar. The heavy, fast riffs and aggressive vocals are reminiscent. At times the album sounds like death metal mixed with a little nu-metal. It gets slower, quieter and a little more complex than your standard of either genre, however. It’s entertaining stuff. If there’s one area I would’ve appreciated an improvement it is in the vocal delivery. Jimbo Patton’s dark, deep growls are intense and awesome, but his higher-pitched stuff isn’t the best. I appreciate that he was going for a mixture of aggressive tones, as to make for a less one-note sound, but with a little improvement in his higher screams, Aethere could be spectacular. All the ingredients are already there.

Aethere’s latest album, Adrift, is solid technical, proggy death metal. While the vocals need a little work, the music behind them is at times, very entertaining. “Sleep” is one of the strongest extreme metal tracks I have heard in awhile – I love the bass work here, which is great across the whole record.

Adrift Track Listing:

01. Genesis
02. Sleep
03. Manipulative
04. Bloom
05. Rot
06. Strain
07. Suffering // Departure
08. Abandoned
09. Revelation

Run Time: 45:03
Release Date: April 28, 2017

Check out the lyric video for the song “Strain”