Band : Adrenaline
Album title : Castrum Doloris
Record label : Casket - Copro
Distributor : PHD
Release date : 17/11/2008
Release : CD

This British high energy Metal act hailing from the West Midlands was formed during 2004 with a line-up consisting of singer Dave, guitarist Nick, bassist Spike, and drummer Higgsy. Soon bringing their violently brutal but still melodic Metal to audiences via numerous live performances, the quartet was soon noted by the media and constantly being hailed as one of the UK’s finest unsigned bands. In 2005 Adrenaline won a prestigious Birmingham Music Award for the best unsigned Rock act in the Midlands, were voted “Hottest Band” in Xposed magazine, and got voted the “Newbreed” title on Kerrang! Radio.

During 2007 the band found themselves in a studio to record their Being this Side Of Insane EP, which got released in the Summer of 2007 by Rising Records. The album getting favourable response from both media and music fans, and Kerrang! Radio listeners voted the band a winner in the Nokia Rock Up & Play competition, which allowed the band to perform on the Nokia stage at the 2007 Download festival and play at the Hard Rock Hell Festival event. Since their conception, Adrenaline can claim to have supported the likes of Amen, God Forbid, High On Fire, Ill Niño, Mendeed, Mistress, Mnemic, Raging Speedhorn, The Haunted and Viking  Skull on the Midland dates of their European tours. Some of you gamers may already have come across the band already, as the band’s music has been used on a couple of soundtracks (Flatout game for PS2, Xbox, and PC; O’Neils snowbording DVD release Vertigo; and the DVD release of Original Sin in the Motorbike Cannonball Run series). During last years, the band’s self-produced video for “Inch Of Skin” also got featured on a number of music tv channels (including Scuzz TV), and currently it’s on the 2008 play-list of Rockworld TV.

With only one guitar in the fold, the music concentrates on groove rather than on intricate note runs, but the tremendous foundation laid down by both the drummer (great instrumentalist, that is!) and bassist, as well as a varied backing vocal support, make for enough subtle deviations to keep the listener interested throughout the album! Suddenly…and only in the middle of the album, namely in the intro of “No Ones Promised Tomorrow”…some keyboard (in this case an atmospheric one) is being used for the first time. Two tracks further in the track-list, the band uses electronics to make “Kill It For Me” a partially Industrial song. More synth/ electronics suddenly appear halfway through “Nos Ra”…and the ensuing album closing instrumental (simply called “Outro”) is really nothing more than just acoustic guitar overlain with a synth emulating the sound of wind. Well, nothing more…it IS a great track, you know, and with all it’s calm serenity it’s also quite different from the rest on the album! Vocally, there’s at least two singers in the band, although I suspect Dave’s done all vocals on the album (there’s too much of a resemblance in the sometimes overlapping clean sang bits, see?). The main vocal is an aggressive scream/ snarl which is closest at home in the Thrash/ Aggro Metal world, the other a somewhat melancholic clean one…and the two used in several combinations!

You would really have to listen to it all to make up an idea about the band’s effectiveness, so why don’t I just direct you to myspace.com/adrenalinerock, where you’ll not only find a sample of the whole album but also two full-length songs alongside 2 songs off the 2006 EP, and the music from the 2007 video. Also, the band has posted no less than 6 (six!) videos on the page (in all honesty, I haven’t had the time to check those out, so don’t ask me about the sound quality, okay?). In hindsight, this IS a band which takes some time to grow on one. Personally, I’d been listening to the first 8 songs when my listening session was interrupted…and I have to say I wasn’t very impressed…but when I returned to listening I happenstanced on the above mentioned “Kill It For Me”, which enticed me to listen to the rest (and the beginning) of the album with a new ear. The band itself presents it’s album with the words, “Castrum Doloris is a 13-track ‘Metal Onslaught” of ferocious new songs for fans of The Haunted, Metallica, God Forbid, Exodus, Killswitch Engage…” and one thing I will agree with is that Adrenaline will definitively provide fans of those bands with a very nice warm-up in the role of support band. Replace ‘em? I don’t think so…not yet anyway!

84/100

Tony.