Band: Adai
Title: We Are All Dead
Label: Make My Day Records
Distribution: Suburban
Release date: November 26th 2010
Review: CD

Originally, Adai were a four-piece combo, but when two members decided to leave the band, the two remaining members, Devin M. (g, v) and Justin T. (d), decided to continue their mutual passion for utter Force whatsoever. They did some gigs as a duo, and because this seemed to work out perfectly, the conclusion was easily made: Adai would continue as a duo.

The album We Are All Dead consists of two parts. The first songs were recorded during Spring 2006 at Godcity Studio with Converge’s Kurt Ballou (Disfear, Cave In, Torche, Kruger, I Hate Sally etc); track six to ten were registered in June 2009, three years after the recording of the five former songs, at Great Western Record Recorders Studio with Matt Talbott, former singer and guitar player of HUM, one of Adai’s all time favourite bands.
More than forty minutes, We Are All Dead brings a mainly instrumental symbiosis of poetic intelligence and progressive heaviness, mixing Doom, Sludge, Drone, Post-Rock, Metal and Indie. All tracks are rather varying and filled with eccentric hooks and well-thought breaks. The addition of samples and the darkened sound give the whole a somewhat industrialised touch of Chaos, yet without losing the determinating power of the organic production. The few vocals are pretty obscure (read: in the vein of Death and Black Metal supremacy), which I (being a Black / Death / Funeral Doom-adept) do appreciate a lot.
Adai do not renew the genre, but with this album, the duo proves that it isn’t a shame to play your hero’s music, at least in case you do it the right way. And in Adai’s case, it is the right way. This material, therefore, is highly recommendable to everyone who appreciates the sweet tunes of, let’s say, Isis, Cult Of Luna, Tephra, Battlefields, Red Sparrows, Tombs and same-minded combos.

FYI: the artwork has been done by a ‘specialist’ within this specific genre: Seldon Hunt – think Isis, Pelican or Neurosis.

85/100

Ivan Tibos.